And my brother and future sister in law would miss out on their wedding, potentially by two days.
EDIT: I now see the Independent:
"Boris Johnson is determined to lift the 30-person limit on weddings on 21 June, even if other lockdown restrictions remain in place, according to reports.
While the prime minister may decide to keep social distancing precautions remain in place, unlimited guest lists are set to be permitted, although wedding guests will still be required to wear masks when not eating and drinking, according to The Times"
It's the hope that gets you
As if the masks thing at weddings is enforceable! Just have a glass in your hand FFS. My wife was furious when she read that: “who would want people in masks at their wedding? And can we dance?”
The government needs to lift the wedding rules on 21 June and stop already with the petty little caveats. Enough.
My brother and SIL wouldn't mind.
Like most people they have a short ceremony, followed by a reception; in their case at the same venue.
Having guests wear masks at the ceremony is not a big deal. For the rest of the evening will be spent with a glass in hand (alcoholic or not)
Dancing?
In any case, the Times today again says weddings limit will be lifted come what may on 21 June. Which is good news.
So why not for christenings? Or funerals? Or birthday parties? Or barmitzvahs? Or other celebrations? There is absolutely no sense to any of this. It is arbitrary and capricious.
Leaving aside the content (which I on balance disagree with), I'm struck by how fluent she is - barely glancing at her notes, she flows in a way she never did as PM. If she was a new backbencher she'd be earmarked for promotion...
It's noticeable on my local social media (which is full of Tories) that people are fine with most aspects of the current semi-lockdown except for the confusing travel policy. The amber list baffles everyone and the formal definition as being for emergencies has been totally lost.
A one-month delay to get to 80/60 (1st/2nd) vaccination of adults with some tweaks for weddings etc. seems to me a reasonable line that most people would accept.
I would accept a firm one month delay or a firm commitment of open when we reach 80/60 but not a we will judge it again in a months time because there will always be risks and always be further mitigating actions that can be taken. Under those circumstances I think a one month delay is more than likely a 9 month delay in reality.
We will be at 80/60 on the 21st of June, at current rates.
A 4 week delay would make that 90/82, at current rates.
Leaving aside the content (which I on balance disagree with), I'm struck by how fluent she is - barely glancing at her notes, she flows in a way she never did as PM. If she was a new backbencher she'd be earmarked for promotion...
It's noticeable on my local social media (which is full of Tories) that people are fine with most aspects of the current semi-lockdown except for the confusing travel policy. The amber list baffles everyone and the formal definition as being for emergencies has been totally lost.
A one-month delay to get to 80/60 (1st/2nd) vaccination of adults with some tweaks for weddings etc. seems to me a reasonable line that most people would accept.
I would accept a firm one month delay or a firm commitment of open when we reach 80/60 but not a we will judge it again in a months time because there will always be risks and always be further mitigating actions that can be taken. Under those circumstances I think a one month delay is more than likely a 9 month delay in reality.
We will be at 80/60 on the 21st of June, at current rates.
A 4 week delay would make that 90/82, at current rates.
90/82 is acceptable as well, although not much higher than 90 as that may never be reached? Just some clarity on a plausible route to normality this summer.
And my brother and future sister in law would miss out on their wedding, potentially by two days.
EDIT: I now see the Independent:
"Boris Johnson is determined to lift the 30-person limit on weddings on 21 June, even if other lockdown restrictions remain in place, according to reports.
While the prime minister may decide to keep social distancing precautions remain in place, unlimited guest lists are set to be permitted, although wedding guests will still be required to wear masks when not eating and drinking, according to The Times"
It's the hope that gets you
As if the masks thing at weddings is enforceable! Just have a glass in your hand FFS. My wife was furious when she read that: “who would want people in masks at their wedding? And can we dance?”
The government needs to lift the wedding rules on 21 June and stop already with the petty little caveats. Enough.
My brother and SIL wouldn't mind.
Like most people they have a short ceremony, followed by a reception; in their case at the same venue.
Having guests wear masks at the ceremony is not a big deal. For the rest of the evening will be spent with a glass in hand (alcoholic or not)
Dancing?
In any case, the Times today again says weddings limit will be lifted come what may on 21 June. Which is good news.
So why not for christenings? Or funerals? Or birthday parties? Or barmitzvahs? Or other celebrations? There is absolutely no sense to any of this. It is arbitrary and capricious.
The original story yesterday said christenings and bar mitzvahs would also be liberalised.
Leaving aside the content (which I on balance disagree with), I'm struck by how fluent she is - barely glancing at her notes, she flows in a way she never did as PM. If she was a new backbencher she'd be earmarked for promotion...
It's noticeable on my local social media (which is full of Tories) that people are fine with most aspects of the current semi-lockdown except for the confusing travel policy. The amber list baffles everyone and the formal definition as being for emergencies has been totally lost.
A one-month delay to get to 80/60 (1st/2nd) vaccination of adults with some tweaks for weddings etc. seems to me a reasonable line that most people would accept.
One question is whether a 1 month delay in lifting restrictions is enough?
Arguably we are already going in the wrong direction & so logically may need to reintroduce some restrictions... but interestingly that doesn't seem to be talked about as a potential option. The 17 May opening up was surely a more dramatic increase to R than whatever additional lifting of restrictions will happen later?
I'm hoping that's because there's an obvious reason why it's not needed that I'm missing... and not that people are just unwilling to confront the reality of the situation.
Reopening nightclubs will possibly increase R by more than 17 May. Especially since 18 to 30s will be mostly unvaccinated.
The only delay to 21 June that makes any sense to me is to reopen everything except nightclubs and to postpone reopening nightclubs to after all 18 year olds have been offered the vaccine. Though personally I think we should let people make their own free choice.
Leaving aside the content (which I on balance disagree with), I'm struck by how fluent she is - barely glancing at her notes, she flows in a way she never did as PM. If she was a new backbencher she'd be earmarked for promotion...
It's noticeable on my local social media (which is full of Tories) that people are fine with most aspects of the current semi-lockdown except for the confusing travel policy. The amber list baffles everyone and the formal definition as being for emergencies has been totally lost.
A one-month delay to get to 80/60 (1st/2nd) vaccination of adults with some tweaks for weddings etc. seems to me a reasonable line that most people would accept.
One question is whether a 1 month delay in lifting restrictions is enough?
Arguably we are already going in the wrong direction & so logically may need to reintroduce some restrictions... but interestingly that doesn't seem to be talked about as a potential option. The 17 May opening up was surely a more dramatic increase to R than whatever additional lifting of restrictions will happen later?
I'm hoping that's because there's an obvious reason why it's not needed that I'm missing... and not that people are just unwilling to confront the reality of the situation.
Why would you add more restrictions, when the numbers in hospital are small and not growing at a massive rate?
We need to move away from raw case numbers, and look at numbers of people who are getting sick.
Even having called it "freedom day" doesn't look such a bright move by our PM, now, does it?
As always its tactically brilliant (mega headlines) and strategically stupid.
The biggest example of which is playing out at the G7. No, we can't sign a deal for headlines and then renege on it months later. For some unknown reason our friends and future trade deal partners think this behaviour isn't conducive to trust and have told us so clearly.
As for the comments in the Commons yesterday what is funniest of all is that the former leader of the Tory Party and Prime Minister is a far better leader of the opposition than sirkeir.
The purpose of the protocol was to preserve peace in Northern Ireland
Its implementation appears to be putting that under serious strain
So it is reasonable to say “is there a better way”
Fetishising “The Deal” is a huge mistake.
Though the Tories did fetishise the "oven ready deal" in 2019. I agree it was a huge mistake.
The way to minimise the Irish Sea Border is for our government to agree to abide by dynamic agreement to abide by Single Market regulations nationwide.
If your suggestion is the UK abides by Single Market regulations against its will then that's as pathetic as Brexiteers saying the solution is to rip the Republic of Ireland out of the Single Market against its will.
We *are* abiding by its regulations by our own will. You make the correct point though - there is no solution to the Irish Border issue. It was always the Elephant in the room and here we are half a year on from the deal and the elephant is still there.
I know that you don't believe there has to be a border anywhere but the people in charge of the various countries and markets do. If as we insist the UK is free to change its standards from the EEA then a border has to go somewhere.
It can't go on Ireland. Its clear that it can't go into the Irish Sea. Which means either the UK is staying formally aligned to the EEA (as we are de facto anyway) or the Republic of Ireland is being propelled out.
Either way there is trouble ahead. Perhaps for a giggle we could propose our fictional digital border model again - the one that hasn't been invented and not implemented anywhere in the world.
Total bollocks, just as it always was.
The EU can fudge it and agree to Trusted Trader schemes etc - but only if they're prepared to compromise.
Or if they refuse to compromise and we refuse a border in the Irish Sea then they can choose to put a border on Ireland.
Or if they refuse to compromise, we refuse a border in the Irish Sea, they refuse to put a border on Ireland then they can put a border between Ireland and the rest of the Single Market.
Or if they refuse to compromise, we refuse a border in the Irish Sea, they refuse to put a border on Ireland, and they refuse to put a border between Ireland and the rest of the Single Market then there won't be a border anywhere and the whole problem goes away.
Either way, we don't need to concede. Just as we never did, so long as we were prepared to put the ball in their court. Because they're better off compromising than they are putting a border up themselves or having No Deal.
We put a border in our own country so that I now need a license and do customs paperwork to send products to Belfast.
And you claim we don't need to concede. Feels like we conceded massively.
And my brother and future sister in law would miss out on their wedding, potentially by two days.
EDIT: I now see the Independent:
"Boris Johnson is determined to lift the 30-person limit on weddings on 21 June, even if other lockdown restrictions remain in place, according to reports.
While the prime minister may decide to keep social distancing precautions remain in place, unlimited guest lists are set to be permitted, although wedding guests will still be required to wear masks when not eating and drinking, according to The Times"
It's the hope that gets you
As if the masks thing at weddings is enforceable! Just have a glass in your hand FFS. My wife was furious when she read that: “who would want people in masks at their wedding? And can we dance?”
The government needs to lift the wedding rules on 21 June and stop already with the petty little caveats. Enough.
My brother and SIL wouldn't mind.
Like most people they have a short ceremony, followed by a reception; in their case at the same venue.
Having guests wear masks at the ceremony is not a big deal. For the rest of the evening will be spent with a glass in hand (alcoholic or not)
Dancing?
In any case, the Times today again says weddings limit will be lifted come what may on 21 June. Which is good news.
So why not for christenings? Or funerals? Or birthday parties? Or barmitzvahs? Or other celebrations? There is absolutely no sense to any of this. It is arbitrary and capricious.
Because there is a huge Wedding industry that may collapse, I presume (not to mention the big wedding expectation)
The Christening/Barmitzvah industry is a much smaller affair..... And the funeral industry isn't really based around big funerals....
Basically Pfizer is lagging 11 weeks due to it being the dose of choice for the very oldest (Some of whom have died*, the rest of whom are already 11 weeks gap vaxxed) and the under 40s who have no reason to have doses accelerated (Yes yes I know I'm an exception here). Meanwhile the AZ cohort for the 40 - 75 year olds mainly is being accelerated a touch
Mike has totally missed the bigger news....Times says delay to Step 4 is looking more like a month delay, in order to get more people (fully) vaccinated.
If only we had a massive supply of vaccines sitting in a warehouse doing nothing.
I think one thing that needs to be examined is, if the government does not deliver on the 21st June, what scale of protests both passive and active may we see? Speaking to a friend who is in the police, they're concerned there may be a number of issues if any delay happens.
The devil may be in the detail. Provided the government does not reimpose any restrictions, any postponement will probably be greeted with a resigned shrug. Weddings are a grey area, since many couples will already have made arrangements on the current timetable, though the mood music has been that, whatever else happens, the weddings rules will still be relaxed.
Totally agree with Mike. And what a great quote this is:
"TMay’s core argument is that the UK, “one of the most heavily vaccinated countries in the world”, is the nation that is the one that is “most reluctant to give its citizens the freedoms those vaccinations should support”."
Indeed. But it is not just the travel industry she should be speaking up for but all businesses forced to operate at less than half capacity for 16 months now - when they have even been allowed to open. Enough of this.
The government is throwing away all the advantages of its vaccination programme. It seems to be adopting a zero-Covid strategy. This is nonsense. There will never be zero-Covid so people will have to live with the risk, just as we do for every other disease.
Keep doing the vaccinations. Increase them. And stop trying to micro-manage people and businesses.
A number of figures in hospitality and entertainment e.g. Luke Johnson have said they are fully opening on 21st come what may.
Politics could get really interesting shortly.
Yes and Andrew Lloyd Webber.
I'd go.
Voluntarily watching an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical demonstrates true dedication to your cause.
LOL absolutely. THAT is the length to which I am prepared to go for my principles.
I think the point is the government is correctly trying to restrict travel to countries where there are new variants and few of the population have been vaccinated.
Where countries have few variants and most of the population have been vaccinated then May would have a point and travel restrictions could be eased there but there are not many of those at present and most of them are on the green list already eg Israel and Australia and New Zealand and Singapore.
Leaving aside the content (which I on balance disagree with), I'm struck by how fluent she is - barely glancing at her notes, she flows in a way she never did as PM. If she was a new backbencher she'd be earmarked for promotion...
It's noticeable on my local social media (which is full of Tories) that people are fine with most aspects of the current semi-lockdown except for the confusing travel policy. The amber list baffles everyone and the formal definition as being for emergencies has been totally lost.
A one-month delay to get to 80/60 (1st/2nd) vaccination of adults with some tweaks for weddings etc. seems to me a reasonable line that most people would accept.
I would accept a firm one month delay or a firm commitment of open when we reach 80/60 but not a we will judge it again in a months time because there will always be risks and always be further mitigating actions that can be taken. Under those circumstances I think a one month delay is more than likely a 9 month delay in reality.
We will be at 80/60 on the 21st of June, at current rates.
A 4 week delay would make that 90/82, at current rates.
90/82 is acceptable as well, although not much higher than 90 as that may never be reached? Just some clarity on a plausible route to normality this summer.
I would be impressed if we get to 90% fully jabbed.
What would be interesting is if the Government comes out with a target number for each figure.
Leaving aside the content (which I on balance disagree with), I'm struck by how fluent she is - barely glancing at her notes, she flows in a way she never did as PM. If she was a new backbencher she'd be earmarked for promotion...
It's noticeable on my local social media (which is full of Tories) that people are fine with most aspects of the current semi-lockdown except for the confusing travel policy. The amber list baffles everyone and the formal definition as being for emergencies has been totally lost.
A one-month delay to get to 80/60 (1st/2nd) vaccination of adults with some tweaks for weddings etc. seems to me a reasonable line that most people would accept.
I would accept a firm one month delay or a firm commitment of open when we reach 80/60 but not a we will judge it again in a months time because there will always be risks and always be further mitigating actions that can be taken. Under those circumstances I think a one month delay is more than likely a 9 month delay in reality.
We will be at 80/60 on the 21st of June, at current rates.
A 4 week delay would make that 90/82, at current rates.
Even having called it "freedom day" doesn't look such a bright move by our PM, now, does it?
As always its tactically brilliant (mega headlines) and strategically stupid.
The biggest example of which is playing out at the G7. No, we can't sign a deal for headlines and then renege on it months later. For some unknown reason our friends and future trade deal partners think this behaviour isn't conducive to trust and have told us so clearly.
As for the comments in the Commons yesterday what is funniest of all is that the former leader of the Tory Party and Prime Minister is a far better leader of the opposition than sirkeir.
The purpose of the protocol was to preserve peace in Northern Ireland
Its implementation appears to be putting that under serious strain
So it is reasonable to say “is there a better way”
Fetishising “The Deal” is a huge mistake.
Though the Tories did fetishise the "oven ready deal" in 2019. I agree it was a huge mistake.
The way to minimise the Irish Sea Border is for our government to agree to abide by dynamic agreement to abide by Single Market regulations nationwide.
If your suggestion is the UK abides by Single Market regulations against its will then that's as pathetic as Brexiteers saying the solution is to rip the Republic of Ireland out of the Single Market against its will.
We *are* abiding by its regulations by our own will. You make the correct point though - there is no solution to the Irish Border issue. It was always the Elephant in the room and here we are half a year on from the deal and the elephant is still there.
I know that you don't believe there has to be a border anywhere but the people in charge of the various countries and markets do. If as we insist the UK is free to change its standards from the EEA then a border has to go somewhere.
It can't go on Ireland. Its clear that it can't go into the Irish Sea. Which means either the UK is staying formally aligned to the EEA (as we are de facto anyway) or the Republic of Ireland is being propelled out.
Either way there is trouble ahead. Perhaps for a giggle we could propose our fictional digital border model again - the one that hasn't been invented and not implemented anywhere in the world.
Total bollocks, just as it always was.
The EU can fudge it and agree to Trusted Trader schemes etc - but only if they're prepared to compromise.
Or if they refuse to compromise and we refuse a border in the Irish Sea then they can choose to put a border on Ireland.
Or if they refuse to compromise, we refuse a border in the Irish Sea, they refuse to put a border on Ireland then they can put a border between Ireland and the rest of the Single Market.
Or if they refuse to compromise, we refuse a border in the Irish Sea, they refuse to put a border on Ireland, and they refuse to put a border between Ireland and the rest of the Single Market then there won't be a border anywhere and the whole problem goes away.
Either way, we don't need to concede. Just as we never did, so long as we were prepared to put the ball in their court. Because they're better off compromising than they are putting a border up themselves or having No Deal.
We put a border in our own country so that I now need a license and do customs paperwork to send products to Belfast.
And you claim we don't need to concede. Feels like we conceded massively.
It sucks for the DUP but quite frankly in the 2019 and 2020 negotiations Northern Ireland was (rightly) not our top priority, getting Britain out of the EU was the top priority.
Now that's no longer the case. The threats of a No Deal for Britain, that flights could be grounded, medicine halted or any of that other claptrap are now gone forever. So what chips do the EU have?
Even having called it "freedom day" doesn't look such a bright move by our PM, now, does it?
As always its tactically brilliant (mega headlines) and strategically stupid.
The biggest example of which is playing out at the G7. No, we can't sign a deal for headlines and then renege on it months later. For some unknown reason our friends and future trade deal partners think this behaviour isn't conducive to trust and have told us so clearly.
As for the comments in the Commons yesterday what is funniest of all is that the former leader of the Tory Party and Prime Minister is a far better leader of the opposition than sirkeir.
The purpose of the protocol was to preserve peace in Northern Ireland
Its implementation appears to be putting that under serious strain
So it is reasonable to say “is there a better way”
Fetishising “The Deal” is a huge mistake.
Though the Tories did fetishise the "oven ready deal" in 2019. I agree it was a huge mistake.
The way to minimise the Irish Sea Border is for our government to agree to abide by dynamic agreement to abide by Single Market regulations nationwide.
If your suggestion is the UK abides by Single Market regulations against its will then that's as pathetic as Brexiteers saying the solution is to rip the Republic of Ireland out of the Single Market against its will.
We *are* abiding by its regulations by our own will. You make the correct point though - there is no solution to the Irish Border issue. It was always the Elephant in the room and here we are half a year on from the deal and the elephant is still there.
I know that you don't believe there has to be a border anywhere but the people in charge of the various countries and markets do. If as we insist the UK is free to change its standards from the EEA then a border has to go somewhere.
It can't go on Ireland. Its clear that it can't go into the Irish Sea. Which means either the UK is staying formally aligned to the EEA (as we are de facto anyway) or the Republic of Ireland is being propelled out.
Either way there is trouble ahead. Perhaps for a giggle we could propose our fictional digital border model again - the one that hasn't been invented and not implemented anywhere in the world.
The UK "reneging on the deal" is an EU narrative that needs to be rejected.
So when UK ministers threaten to invoke clauses to negate the deal that is actually an EU narrative?
Invoking clauses within a deal to be used as they are intended to be used is not negating the deal.
Bingo!
If the EU didn't want Article 16 invoking they shouldn't have agreed to Article 16 in the deal. That they did, means its perfectly legitimate to use.
Besides, they literally started it: they've already invoked it themselves.
You see that Article 50 which we invoked to leave the EU? Invoking it negated our membership. You see that Article 16 in the protocol? Our invoking it negates the protocol.
Most contracts have a section setting out how to end the contract. You want the contract when you sign it. You may want to end it at some point hence the articles setting out how to do so. Its a genuinely funny argument to make that contracts should have no exit mechanisms in them because triggering them to end the contract is not ending the contract as they are being used how they were intended to be used.
Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said it was "highly unlikely" the full relaxation of coronavirus restrictions will go ahead later this month.
(Telegraph blog)
Is that said with regret/anger/outrage - or in being four-square behind whatever the Government does?
I have no idea what Labour or the LibDems would do in the alternative. It's why, politically, the Government won't take much of a hit.
It would be great if the Lib Dems could be standing up for liberalism.
Instead they seem to want to stand up for the illiberal Green Belt and telling people they can't build on their own land and want to say nothing at all about possibly the greatest peacetime restriction on civil liberties this country has seen in the modern era all while the NHS is at zero risk of imminent collapse.
There is nothing liberal about building all over the Green Belt and to be fair to the LDs they did oppose Covid vaccination passports even if they have not been as anti lockdown as Reform UK.
Leaving aside the content (which I on balance disagree with), I'm struck by how fluent she is - barely glancing at her notes, she flows in a way she never did as PM. If she was a new backbencher she'd be earmarked for promotion...
It's noticeable on my local social media (which is full of Tories) that people are fine with most aspects of the current semi-lockdown except for the confusing travel policy. The amber list baffles everyone and the formal definition as being for emergencies has been totally lost.
A one-month delay to get to 80/60 (1st/2nd) vaccination of adults with some tweaks for weddings etc. seems to me a reasonable line that most people would accept.
I would accept a firm one month delay or a firm commitment of open when we reach 80/60 but not a we will judge it again in a months time because there will always be risks and always be further mitigating actions that can be taken. Under those circumstances I think a one month delay is more than likely a 9 month delay in reality.
We will be at 80/60 on the 21st of June, at current rates.
A 4 week delay would make that 90/82, at current rates.
90/82 is acceptable as well, although not much higher than 90 as that may never be reached? Just some clarity on a plausible route to normality this summer.
I would be impressed if we get to 90% fully jabbed.
What would be interesting is if the Government comes out with a target number for each figure.
Would be very interesting. But very dangerous.
What would peoples' attitude on here be, for example, to know that it was @Dura_Ace and @contrarian preventing them living a "normal" life?
Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said it was "highly unlikely" the full relaxation of coronavirus restrictions will go ahead later this month.
(Telegraph blog)
And she presumably gave her source for this, or was it personal belief? ( not that I think she’s wrong - when their are briefings that the Chancellor is prepared to accept delay there’s no chance).
However there was some ridiculous line this morning that ministers were moving towards favouring delay of 4 weeks instead of two to give businesses “certainty”. Because if they delayed by only two they might then have to change their mind and this would cause “additional disruption”. This makes no sense whatsoever. If there can be a change of course in two weeks there can be a change of course after four. There just needs to be a ripping of the band aid.
As the Indian variant spreads there will be areas almost completely unaffected now which will start to show “worrying signs” in a few weeks. There needs to be more trust in the evidence of places like Bolton, and not overreliance on models that seem determined to ignore real world evidence.
The only certainty that gives businesses is that they will continue to lose money, lose bookings - for instance, Daughter will lose a christening and 60th birthday party celebration - lose turnover, lose existing furlough help - which is due to be reduced in July - and continue to be unprofitable.
Other than that it's a brilliant plan.
There appears to be an ignorant view in some of these briefings to the media that there are two types of businesses - those that are open and doing fine, and those that are shut. And there is a need for “certainty” for the latter. Whereas of course there are hospitality based businesses all over the country that are open and not “fine” and who can ramp up at almost a moments notice (I’m obviously exaggerating slightly, but given the roadmap was predicated on providing a week’s notice for everything why should the assumption now be that 4 weeks are needed? And why does that give any more “certainty” if the Govt are saying that thing’s “might change” in two?
The possible good news for you daughter is that I read that Christenings are going to be covered by the arbitrary “wedding exemption”....
Leaving aside the content (which I on balance disagree with), I'm struck by how fluent she is - barely glancing at her notes, she flows in a way she never did as PM. If she was a new backbencher she'd be earmarked for promotion...
It's noticeable on my local social media (which is full of Tories) that people are fine with most aspects of the current semi-lockdown except for the confusing travel policy. The amber list baffles everyone and the formal definition as being for emergencies has been totally lost.
A one-month delay to get to 80/60 (1st/2nd) vaccination of adults with some tweaks for weddings etc. seems to me a reasonable line that most people would accept.
I would accept a firm one month delay or a firm commitment of open when we reach 80/60 but not a we will judge it again in a months time because there will always be risks and always be further mitigating actions that can be taken. Under those circumstances I think a one month delay is more than likely a 9 month delay in reality.
We will be at 80/60 on the 21st of June, at current rates.
A 4 week delay would make that 90/82, at current rates.
90/82 is acceptable as well, although not much higher than 90 as that may never be reached? Just some clarity on a plausible route to normality this summer.
OK.
Time to punt.
I say that the line on Monday will be "Vaccines have been going so well that we are now at x% with first doses, and y% with second doses, and the Delta variant has started to decline. So we are opening in the UK whilst leaving a very few restrictions in place: (list of restrictions). Limitations on international travel will remain in place for a little longer, but we have been able to add these places to the Green List".
Plus a statement of clarifications where it is currently foggy.
Feel free to argue that that suggestion contains no content whatsoever.
(On the Lake District, I always that was where London / SE people went on holiday because they couldn't stand not havng traffic jams everywhere.)
Even having called it "freedom day" doesn't look such a bright move by our PM, now, does it?
As always its tactically brilliant (mega headlines) and strategically stupid.
The biggest example of which is playing out at the G7. No, we can't sign a deal for headlines and then renege on it months later. For some unknown reason our friends and future trade deal partners think this behaviour isn't conducive to trust and have told us so clearly.
As for the comments in the Commons yesterday what is funniest of all is that the former leader of the Tory Party and Prime Minister is a far better leader of the opposition than sirkeir.
The purpose of the protocol was to preserve peace in Northern Ireland
Its implementation appears to be putting that under serious strain
So it is reasonable to say “is there a better way”
Fetishising “The Deal” is a huge mistake.
Though the Tories did fetishise the "oven ready deal" in 2019. I agree it was a huge mistake.
The way to minimise the Irish Sea Border is for our government to agree to abide by dynamic agreement to abide by Single Market regulations nationwide.
If your suggestion is the UK abides by Single Market regulations against its will then that's as pathetic as Brexiteers saying the solution is to rip the Republic of Ireland out of the Single Market against its will.
We *are* abiding by its regulations by our own will. You make the correct point though - there is no solution to the Irish Border issue. It was always the Elephant in the room and here we are half a year on from the deal and the elephant is still there.
I know that you don't believe there has to be a border anywhere but the people in charge of the various countries and markets do. If as we insist the UK is free to change its standards from the EEA then a border has to go somewhere.
It can't go on Ireland. Its clear that it can't go into the Irish Sea. Which means either the UK is staying formally aligned to the EEA (as we are de facto anyway) or the Republic of Ireland is being propelled out.
Either way there is trouble ahead. Perhaps for a giggle we could propose our fictional digital border model again - the one that hasn't been invented and not implemented anywhere in the world.
The UK "reneging on the deal" is an EU narrative that needs to be rejected.
So when UK ministers threaten to invoke clauses to negate the deal that is actually an EU narrative?
Invoking clauses within a deal to be used as they are intended to be used is not negating the deal.
Bingo!
If the EU didn't want Article 16 invoking they shouldn't have agreed to Article 16 in the deal. That they did, means its perfectly legitimate to use.
Besides, they literally started it: they've already invoked it themselves.
You see that Article 50 which we invoked to leave the EU? Invoking it negated our membership. You see that Article 16 in the protocol? Our invoking it negates the protocol.
Most contracts have a section setting out how to end the contract. You want the contract when you sign it. You may want to end it at some point hence the articles setting out how to do so. Its a genuinely funny argument to make that contracts should have no exit mechanisms in them because triggering them to end the contract is not ending the contract as they are being used how they were intended to be used.
Actually Article 16 puts the Protocol into temporary abeyance, it doesn't exit it.
May's terrible backstop deal had no unilateral exit mechanism.
There is nothing wrong with invoking an exit clause though, if you do that legitimately that is perfectly legitimate.
Even having called it "freedom day" doesn't look such a bright move by our PM, now, does it?
As always its tactically brilliant (mega headlines) and strategically stupid.
The biggest example of which is playing out at the G7. No, we can't sign a deal for headlines and then renege on it months later. For some unknown reason our friends and future trade deal partners think this behaviour isn't conducive to trust and have told us so clearly.
As for the comments in the Commons yesterday what is funniest of all is that the former leader of the Tory Party and Prime Minister is a far better leader of the opposition than sirkeir.
The purpose of the protocol was to preserve peace in Northern Ireland
Its implementation appears to be putting that under serious strain
So it is reasonable to say “is there a better way”
Fetishising “The Deal” is a huge mistake.
Though the Tories did fetishise the "oven ready deal" in 2019. I agree it was a huge mistake.
The way to minimise the Irish Sea Border is for our government to agree to abide by dynamic agreement to abide by Single Market regulations nationwide.
If your suggestion is the UK abides by Single Market regulations against its will then that's as pathetic as Brexiteers saying the solution is to rip the Republic of Ireland out of the Single Market against its will.
We *are* abiding by its regulations by our own will. You make the correct point though - there is no solution to the Irish Border issue. It was always the Elephant in the room and here we are half a year on from the deal and the elephant is still there.
I know that you don't believe there has to be a border anywhere but the people in charge of the various countries and markets do. If as we insist the UK is free to change its standards from the EEA then a border has to go somewhere.
It can't go on Ireland. Its clear that it can't go into the Irish Sea. Which means either the UK is staying formally aligned to the EEA (as we are de facto anyway) or the Republic of Ireland is being propelled out.
Either way there is trouble ahead. Perhaps for a giggle we could propose our fictional digital border model again - the one that hasn't been invented and not implemented anywhere in the world.
Total bollocks, just as it always was.
The EU can fudge it and agree to Trusted Trader schemes etc - but only if they're prepared to compromise.
Or if they refuse to compromise and we refuse a border in the Irish Sea then they can choose to put a border on Ireland.
Or if they refuse to compromise, we refuse a border in the Irish Sea, they refuse to put a border on Ireland then they can put a border between Ireland and the rest of the Single Market.
Or if they refuse to compromise, we refuse a border in the Irish Sea, they refuse to put a border on Ireland, and they refuse to put a border between Ireland and the rest of the Single Market then there won't be a border anywhere and the whole problem goes away.
Either way, we don't need to concede. Just as we never did, so long as we were prepared to put the ball in their court. Because they're better off compromising than they are putting a border up themselves or having No Deal.
We put a border in our own country so that I now need a license and do customs paperwork to send products to Belfast.
And you claim we don't need to concede. Feels like we conceded massively.
It sucks for the DUP but quite frankly in the 2019 and 2020 negotiations Northern Ireland was (rightly) not our top priority, getting Britain out of the EU was the top priority.
Now that's no longer the case. The threats of a No Deal for Britain, that flights could be grounded, medicine halted or any of that other claptrap are now gone forever. So what chips do the EU have?
Lol - trade? supply of power? the rest of the world backing them and not us? They can demonstrate that the perfidious Brits negotiate deals in bad faith and then renege on them. That is what the Americans are telling us and they are supposed to be one of our key partners going forward.
I know that you have this view that we are now uber alles and can just ignore the rules we dislike. Apparently we have ministers who also subscribe to that world view.
The big problem is that trade is bilateral and multilateral, and the rest of the world disagrees with our interpretation as to how trade works.
Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said it was "highly unlikely" the full relaxation of coronavirus restrictions will go ahead later this month.
(Telegraph blog)
Is that said with regret/anger/outrage - or in being four-square behind whatever the Government does?
I have no idea what Labour or the LibDems would do in the alternative. It's why, politically, the Government won't take much of a hit.
It would be great if the Lib Dems could be standing up for liberalism.
Instead they seem to want to stand up for the illiberal Green Belt and telling people they can't build on their own land and want to say nothing at all about possibly the greatest peacetime restriction on civil liberties this country has seen in the modern era all while the NHS is at zero risk of imminent collapse.
There is nothing liberal about building all over the Green Belt and to be fair to the LDs they did oppose Covid vaccination passports even if they have not been as anti lockdown as Reform UK.
You don't know what liberalism is.
The state telling people they can't build on their own land is illiberal. Just because you like the Green Built doesn't stop it from being an illiberal big state intervention.
In Polterghost news when I came into the office this morning a small block of wood with two large rusty nails sticking upward was in the middle of the floor. The block is an offcut which like the others had been swept into the corner awaiting final removal as I complete the demolition / removal work of the former bank fittings.
There is no rational explanation for how it transported itself from one place to the other.
Leaving aside the content (which I on balance disagree with), I'm struck by how fluent she is - barely glancing at her notes, she flows in a way she never did as PM. If she was a new backbencher she'd be earmarked for promotion...
It's noticeable on my local social media (which is full of Tories) that people are fine with most aspects of the current semi-lockdown except for the confusing travel policy. The amber list baffles everyone and the formal definition as being for emergencies has been totally lost.
A one-month delay to get to 80/60 (1st/2nd) vaccination of adults with some tweaks for weddings etc. seems to me a reasonable line that most people would accept.
I would accept a firm one month delay or a firm commitment of open when we reach 80/60 but not a we will judge it again in a months time because there will always be risks and always be further mitigating actions that can be taken. Under those circumstances I think a one month delay is more than likely a 9 month delay in reality.
We will be at 80/60 on the 21st of June, at current rates.
A 4 week delay would make that 90/82, at current rates.
90/82 is acceptable as well, although not much higher than 90 as that may never be reached? Just some clarity on a plausible route to normality this summer.
I would be impressed if we get to 90% fully jabbed.
What would be interesting is if the Government comes out with a target number for each figure.
Any target would surely have to be "offered" (perhaps + x weeks).
Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said it was "highly unlikely" the full relaxation of coronavirus restrictions will go ahead later this month.
(Telegraph blog)
Is that said with regret/anger/outrage - or in being four-square behind whatever the Government does?
I have no idea what Labour or the LibDems would do in the alternative. It's why, politically, the Government won't take much of a hit.
It would be great if the Lib Dems could be standing up for liberalism.
Instead they seem to want to stand up for the illiberal Green Belt and telling people they can't build on their own land and want to say nothing at all about possibly the greatest peacetime restriction on civil liberties this country has seen in the modern era all while the NHS is at zero risk of imminent collapse.
There is nothing liberal about building all over the Green Belt and to be fair to the LDs they did oppose Covid vaccination passports even if they have not been as anti lockdown as Reform UK.
Even having called it "freedom day" doesn't look such a bright move by our PM, now, does it?
As always its tactically brilliant (mega headlines) and strategically stupid.
The biggest example of which is playing out at the G7. No, we can't sign a deal for headlines and then renege on it months later. For some unknown reason our friends and future trade deal partners think this behaviour isn't conducive to trust and have told us so clearly.
As for the comments in the Commons yesterday what is funniest of all is that the former leader of the Tory Party and Prime Minister is a far better leader of the opposition than sirkeir.
The purpose of the protocol was to preserve peace in Northern Ireland
Its implementation appears to be putting that under serious strain
So it is reasonable to say “is there a better way”
Fetishising “The Deal” is a huge mistake.
Though the Tories did fetishise the "oven ready deal" in 2019. I agree it was a huge mistake.
The way to minimise the Irish Sea Border is for our government to agree to abide by dynamic agreement to abide by Single Market regulations nationwide.
If your suggestion is the UK abides by Single Market regulations against its will then that's as pathetic as Brexiteers saying the solution is to rip the Republic of Ireland out of the Single Market against its will.
We *are* abiding by its regulations by our own will. You make the correct point though - there is no solution to the Irish Border issue. It was always the Elephant in the room and here we are half a year on from the deal and the elephant is still there.
I know that you don't believe there has to be a border anywhere but the people in charge of the various countries and markets do. If as we insist the UK is free to change its standards from the EEA then a border has to go somewhere.
It can't go on Ireland. Its clear that it can't go into the Irish Sea. Which means either the UK is staying formally aligned to the EEA (as we are de facto anyway) or the Republic of Ireland is being propelled out.
Either way there is trouble ahead. Perhaps for a giggle we could propose our fictional digital border model again - the one that hasn't been invented and not implemented anywhere in the world.
Total bollocks, just as it always was.
The EU can fudge it and agree to Trusted Trader schemes etc - but only if they're prepared to compromise.
Or if they refuse to compromise and we refuse a border in the Irish Sea then they can choose to put a border on Ireland.
Or if they refuse to compromise, we refuse a border in the Irish Sea, they refuse to put a border on Ireland then they can put a border between Ireland and the rest of the Single Market.
Or if they refuse to compromise, we refuse a border in the Irish Sea, they refuse to put a border on Ireland, and they refuse to put a border between Ireland and the rest of the Single Market then there won't be a border anywhere and the whole problem goes away.
Either way, we don't need to concede. Just as we never did, so long as we were prepared to put the ball in their court. Because they're better off compromising than they are putting a border up themselves or having No Deal.
We put a border in our own country so that I now need a license and do customs paperwork to send products to Belfast.
And you claim we don't need to concede. Feels like we conceded massively.
It sucks for the DUP but quite frankly in the 2019 and 2020 negotiations Northern Ireland was (rightly) not our top priority, getting Britain out of the EU was the top priority.
Now that's no longer the case. The threats of a No Deal for Britain, that flights could be grounded, medicine halted or any of that other claptrap are now gone forever. So what chips do the EU have?
Lol - trade? supply of power? the rest of the world backing them and not us? They can demonstrate that the perfidious Brits negotiate deals in bad faith and then renege on them. That is what the Americans are telling us and they are supposed to be one of our key partners going forward.
I know that you have this view that we are now uber alles and can just ignore the rules we dislike. Apparently we have ministers who also subscribe to that world view.
The big problem is that trade is bilateral and multilateral, and the rest of the world disagrees with our interpretation as to how trade works.
You are arguing with a brainwashed automaton that thinks everything Brexity is wonderful and Boris Johnson is the Messiah. He is the Johnson loving equivalent of a swooning Corbynite. If he could he would chant "oooo, Boris Johnson". He has no understanding of trade or business or much else that I can tell, and pontificates on everything as though he is an expert, even though he clearly is not. I guess it is his hobby.
In Polterghost news when I came into the office this morning a small block of wood with two large rusty nails sticking upward was in the middle of the floor. The block is an offcut which like the others had been swept into the corner awaiting final removal as I complete the demolition / removal work of the former bank fittings.
There is no rational explanation for how it transported itself from one place to the other.
Hmmmm.... wake us up when all the chairs get stacked on the table.....
Leaving aside the content (which I on balance disagree with), I'm struck by how fluent she is - barely glancing at her notes, she flows in a way she never did as PM. If she was a new backbencher she'd be earmarked for promotion...
It's noticeable on my local social media (which is full of Tories) that people are fine with most aspects of the current semi-lockdown except for the confusing travel policy. The amber list baffles everyone and the formal definition as being for emergencies has been totally lost.
A one-month delay to get to 80/60 (1st/2nd) vaccination of adults with some tweaks for weddings etc. seems to me a reasonable line that most people would accept.
I would accept a firm one month delay or a firm commitment of open when we reach 80/60 but not a we will judge it again in a months time because there will always be risks and always be further mitigating actions that can be taken. Under those circumstances I think a one month delay is more than likely a 9 month delay in reality.
We will be at 80/60 on the 21st of June, at current rates.
A 4 week delay would make that 90/82, at current rates.
90/82 is acceptable as well, although not much higher than 90 as that may never be reached? Just some clarity on a plausible route to normality this summer.
OK.
Time to punt.
I say that the line on Monday will be "Vaccines have been going so well that we are now at x% with first doses, and y% with second doses, and the Delta variant has started to decline. So we are opening in the UK whilst leaving a very few restrictions in place: (list of restrictions). Limitations on international travel will remain in place for a little longer, but we have been able to add these places to the Green List".
Seeing as its the start of the Euros, I'll tell you honestly, I will love it if that happens, love it.
Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said it was "highly unlikely" the full relaxation of coronavirus restrictions will go ahead later this month.
(Telegraph blog)
Is that said with regret/anger/outrage - or in being four-square behind whatever the Government does?
I have no idea what Labour or the LibDems would do in the alternative. It's why, politically, the Government won't take much of a hit.
It would be great if the Lib Dems could be standing up for liberalism.
Instead they seem to want to stand up for the illiberal Green Belt and telling people they can't build on their own land and want to say nothing at all about possibly the greatest peacetime restriction on civil liberties this country has seen in the modern era all while the NHS is at zero risk of imminent collapse.
There is nothing liberal about building all over the Green Belt and to be fair to the LDs they did oppose Covid vaccination passports even if they have not been as anti lockdown as Reform UK.
You don't know what liberalism is.
The state telling people they can't build on their own land is illiberal. Just because you like the Green Built doesn't stop it from being an illiberal big state intervention.
So is the state telling people they can't inject heroin into their own veins.
Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said it was "highly unlikely" the full relaxation of coronavirus restrictions will go ahead later this month.
(Telegraph blog)
Is that said with regret/anger/outrage - or in being four-square behind whatever the Government does?
I have no idea what Labour or the LibDems would do in the alternative. It's why, politically, the Government won't take much of a hit.
It would be great if the Lib Dems could be standing up for liberalism.
Instead they seem to want to stand up for the illiberal Green Belt and telling people they can't build on their own land and want to say nothing at all about possibly the greatest peacetime restriction on civil liberties this country has seen in the modern era all while the NHS is at zero risk of imminent collapse.
There is nothing liberal about building all over the Green Belt and to be fair to the LDs they did oppose Covid vaccination passports even if they have not been as anti lockdown as Reform UK.
You don't know what liberalism is.
The state telling people they can't build on their own land is illiberal. Just because you like the Green Built doesn't stop it from being an illiberal big state intervention.
The state building all over the lung around our largest city may be libertarian but it is not liberal.
However as I am a conservative and neither liberal nor libertarian I have no problem with state intervention to preserve the Green Belt.
If the LDs went libertarian however and proposed building all over the greenbelt as well as brownfield sites they would lose the one area they are gaining votes at the moment in the South to the Greens and Residents Association and Independent candidates
No-one who has had COVID, with or without symptoms, should be vaccinated. They're immune. Some who haven't had it are also immune. The others probably could benefit, especially if they are either over 70 and/or in very poor health. (The poor health matters more.)
Anyone who slips through the net should be prescribed Ivermectin, HCQ or other effective medicines, at a cost to the NHS of c. 10 p to £1.
But it's not about the health of the little people ... so this rational, evidence- and risk-based approach was discarded 18 months ago.
Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said it was "highly unlikely" the full relaxation of coronavirus restrictions will go ahead later this month.
(Telegraph blog)
Is that said with regret/anger/outrage - or in being four-square behind whatever the Government does?
I have no idea what Labour or the LibDems would do in the alternative. It's why, politically, the Government won't take much of a hit.
It would be great if the Lib Dems could be standing up for liberalism.
Instead they seem to want to stand up for the illiberal Green Belt and telling people they can't build on their own land and want to say nothing at all about possibly the greatest peacetime restriction on civil liberties this country has seen in the modern era all while the NHS is at zero risk of imminent collapse.
There is nothing liberal about building all over the Green Belt and to be fair to the LDs they did oppose Covid vaccination passports even if they have not been as anti lockdown as Reform UK.
You don't know what liberalism is.
The state telling people they can't build on their own land is illiberal. Just because you like the Green Built doesn't stop it from being an illiberal big state intervention.
So is the state telling people they can't inject heroin into their own veins.
Indeed - and there is a far from small group of people who think that making heroin illegal hasn't exactly improved the situation.
If true I think we can forget opening up on the 21st. In fact we need to go back into a (short) period of greater restrictions now, otherwise the NHS is going to be stuffed in by next month, never mind August.
We need everyone vaccinated, asap, but that’s not going to happen until the end of the summer due to supply issues.
Leaving aside the content (which I on balance disagree with), I'm struck by how fluent she is - barely glancing at her notes, she flows in a way she never did as PM. If she was a new backbencher she'd be earmarked for promotion...
It's noticeable on my local social media (which is full of Tories) that people are fine with most aspects of the current semi-lockdown except for the confusing travel policy. The amber list baffles everyone and the formal definition as being for emergencies has been totally lost.
A one-month delay to get to 80/60 (1st/2nd) vaccination of adults with some tweaks for weddings etc. seems to me a reasonable line that most people would accept.
I would accept a firm one month delay or a firm commitment of open when we reach 80/60 but not a we will judge it again in a months time because there will always be risks and always be further mitigating actions that can be taken. Under those circumstances I think a one month delay is more than likely a 9 month delay in reality.
We will be at 80/60 on the 21st of June, at current rates.
A 4 week delay would make that 90/82, at current rates.
90/82 is acceptable as well, although not much higher than 90 as that may never be reached? Just some clarity on a plausible route to normality this summer.
I would be impressed if we get to 90% fully jabbed.
What would be interesting is if the Government comes out with a target number for each figure.
Would be very interesting. But very dangerous.
What would peoples' attitude on here be, for example, to know that it was @Dura_Ace and @contrarian preventing them living a "normal" life?
I would burn them. The bastards.
Or, alternatively, I would blame the authoritarian bastards who are doing it. The likes of Dura Ace and Contrarian are making an informed choice. Not their fault if our rulers are gobshites.
Even having called it "freedom day" doesn't look such a bright move by our PM, now, does it?
As always its tactically brilliant (mega headlines) and strategically stupid.
The biggest example of which is playing out at the G7. No, we can't sign a deal for headlines and then renege on it months later. For some unknown reason our friends and future trade deal partners think this behaviour isn't conducive to trust and have told us so clearly.
As for the comments in the Commons yesterday what is funniest of all is that the former leader of the Tory Party and Prime Minister is a far better leader of the opposition than sirkeir.
The purpose of the protocol was to preserve peace in Northern Ireland
Its implementation appears to be putting that under serious strain
So it is reasonable to say “is there a better way”
Fetishising “The Deal” is a huge mistake.
Though the Tories did fetishise the "oven ready deal" in 2019. I agree it was a huge mistake.
The way to minimise the Irish Sea Border is for our government to agree to abide by dynamic agreement to abide by Single Market regulations nationwide.
If your suggestion is the UK abides by Single Market regulations against its will then that's as pathetic as Brexiteers saying the solution is to rip the Republic of Ireland out of the Single Market against its will.
We *are* abiding by its regulations by our own will. You make the correct point though - there is no solution to the Irish Border issue. It was always the Elephant in the room and here we are half a year on from the deal and the elephant is still there.
I know that you don't believe there has to be a border anywhere but the people in charge of the various countries and markets do. If as we insist the UK is free to change its standards from the EEA then a border has to go somewhere.
It can't go on Ireland. Its clear that it can't go into the Irish Sea. Which means either the UK is staying formally aligned to the EEA (as we are de facto anyway) or the Republic of Ireland is being propelled out.
Either way there is trouble ahead. Perhaps for a giggle we could propose our fictional digital border model again - the one that hasn't been invented and not implemented anywhere in the world.
Total bollocks, just as it always was.
The EU can fudge it and agree to Trusted Trader schemes etc - but only if they're prepared to compromise.
Or if they refuse to compromise and we refuse a border in the Irish Sea then they can choose to put a border on Ireland.
Or if they refuse to compromise, we refuse a border in the Irish Sea, they refuse to put a border on Ireland then they can put a border between Ireland and the rest of the Single Market.
Or if they refuse to compromise, we refuse a border in the Irish Sea, they refuse to put a border on Ireland, and they refuse to put a border between Ireland and the rest of the Single Market then there won't be a border anywhere and the whole problem goes away.
Either way, we don't need to concede. Just as we never did, so long as we were prepared to put the ball in their court. Because they're better off compromising than they are putting a border up themselves or having No Deal.
We put a border in our own country so that I now need a license and do customs paperwork to send products to Belfast.
And you claim we don't need to concede. Feels like we conceded massively.
It sucks for the DUP but quite frankly in the 2019 and 2020 negotiations Northern Ireland was (rightly) not our top priority, getting Britain out of the EU was the top priority.
Now that's no longer the case. The threats of a No Deal for Britain, that flights could be grounded, medicine halted or any of that other claptrap are now gone forever. So what chips do the EU have?
Lol - trade? supply of power? the rest of the world backing them and not us? They can demonstrate that the perfidious Brits negotiate deals in bad faith and then renege on them. That is what the Americans are telling us and they are supposed to be one of our key partners going forward.
I know that you have this view that we are now uber alles and can just ignore the rules we dislike. Apparently we have ministers who also subscribe to that world view.
The big problem is that trade is bilateral and multilateral, and the rest of the world disagrees with our interpretation as to how trade works.
You are arguing with a brainwashed automaton that thinks everything Brexity is wonderful and Boris Johnson is the Messiah. He is the Johnson loving equivalent of a swooning Corbynite. If he could he would chant "oooo, Boris Johnson". He has no understanding of trade or business or much else that I can tell, and pontificates on everything as though he is an expert, even though he clearly is not. I guess it is his hobby.
Give it a rest, you don't like PT, we get it. No-one is impressed with the poor attempts at bullying.
In Polterghost news when I came into the office this morning a small block of wood with two large rusty nails sticking upward was in the middle of the floor. The block is an offcut which like the others had been swept into the corner awaiting final removal as I complete the demolition / removal work of the former bank fittings.
There is no rational explanation for how it transported itself from one place to the other.
Hmmmm.... wake us up when all the chairs get stacked on the table.....
I know it seems comical but when you experience this type of thing it is very unnerving
Using the NIMS population estimates, and yesterdays release for England, I get
Age Band First Second Under 30 21.64% 11.96% 30-34 47.06% 16.91% 35-39 60.23% 20.20% 40-44 71.50% 26.61% 45-49 78.66% 36.04% 50-54 84.73% 62.87% 55-59 87.60% 69.82% 60-64 89.80% 81.57% 65-69 91.93% 88.28% 70-74 94.25% 92.21% 75-79 95.26% 93.38% 80 plus 95.00% 92.26%
The gap between the two doses is curious.
Do people have a bad reaction to the first dose and become afraid of having the second ?
Or is it they can't be bothered to get the second ?
For the older age groups, a not insignificant number of people will die during the 12 weeks between first and second dose. The annual risk of dying in the UK for 85+ age group is 1-in-6 according to the first google result I looked at, which is ~4% for a 12-week period. I think this would still be about 0.6% for a 70-year old.
Anecdotally, it does seem that some people are put off by a bad experience of side effects from the first dose. They may mistakenly believe that the side effects from a second dose would be worse than catching the virus with one dose of protection. Then you will have a certain proportion who are a bit disorganised, or have something more urgent come up either by intent or design.
No-one who has had COVID, with or without symptoms, should be vaccinated. They're immune. Some who haven't had it are also immune. The others probably could benefit, especially if they are either over 70 and/or in very poor health. (The poor health matters more.)
Anyone who slips through the net should be prescribed Ivermectin, HCQ or other effective medicines, at a cost to the NHS of c. 10 p to £1.
But it's not about the health of the little people ... so this rational, evidence- and risk-based approach was discarded 18 months ago.
You are aware that Zero Hedge is equivalent to the Sunday Sport, in terms of reporting quality?
If true I think we can forget opening up on the 21st. In fact we need to go back into a (short) period of greater restrictions now, otherwise the NHS is going to be stuffed in by next month, never mind August.
We need everyone vaccinated, asap, but that’s not going to happen until the end of the summer due to supply issues.
It is actually never happening as vaccination is not compulsory.
Given about 20% of the population are anti Vaxxers and will not get the vaccination, the most we can get it up to it is about 80% double vaccinated from 50% now
If true I think we can forget opening up on the 21st. In fact we need to go back into a (short) period of greater restrictions now, otherwise the NHS is going to be stuffed in by next month, never mind August.
We need everyone vaccinated, asap, but that’s not going to happen until the end of the summer due to supply issues.
Interestingly, the number of positive tests actually fell day on day yesterday, although it was probably just noise.
No-one who has had COVID, with or without symptoms, should be vaccinated. They're immune. Some who haven't had it are also immune. The others probably could benefit, especially if they are either over 70 and/or in very poor health. (The poor health matters more.)
Anyone who slips through the net should be prescribed Ivermectin, HCQ or other effective medicines, at a cost to the NHS of c. 10 p to £1.
But it's not about the health of the little people ... so this rational, evidence- and risk-based approach was discarded 18 months ago.
Sorry but that is scientifically wrong. Studies show that having Covid does give some level of immunity but often for a limited period. It does not give anything like the level of antibody response that two doses of the vaccine do.
Myocarditis and pericarditis are serious conditions so this should be looked at seriously, but this is not the scare story you are inferring. are you anti-vaxxer?
In Polterghost news when I came into the office this morning a small block of wood with two large rusty nails sticking upward was in the middle of the floor. The block is an offcut which like the others had been swept into the corner awaiting final removal as I complete the demolition / removal work of the former bank fittings.
There is no rational explanation for how it transported itself from one place to the other.
Hmmmm.... wake us up when all the chairs get stacked on the table.....
I know it seems comical but when you experience this type of thing it is very unnerving
Even having called it "freedom day" doesn't look such a bright move by our PM, now, does it?
As always its tactically brilliant (mega headlines) and strategically stupid.
The biggest example of which is playing out at the G7. No, we can't sign a deal for headlines and then renege on it months later. For some unknown reason our friends and future trade deal partners think this behaviour isn't conducive to trust and have told us so clearly.
As for the comments in the Commons yesterday what is funniest of all is that the former leader of the Tory Party and Prime Minister is a far better leader of the opposition than sirkeir.
The purpose of the protocol was to preserve peace in Northern Ireland
Its implementation appears to be putting that under serious strain
So it is reasonable to say “is there a better way”
Fetishising “The Deal” is a huge mistake.
Though the Tories did fetishise the "oven ready deal" in 2019. I agree it was a huge mistake.
The way to minimise the Irish Sea Border is for our government to agree to abide by dynamic agreement to abide by Single Market regulations nationwide.
If your suggestion is the UK abides by Single Market regulations against its will then that's as pathetic as Brexiteers saying the solution is to rip the Republic of Ireland out of the Single Market against its will.
We *are* abiding by its regulations by our own will. You make the correct point though - there is no solution to the Irish Border issue. It was always the Elephant in the room and here we are half a year on from the deal and the elephant is still there.
I know that you don't believe there has to be a border anywhere but the people in charge of the various countries and markets do. If as we insist the UK is free to change its standards from the EEA then a border has to go somewhere.
It can't go on Ireland. Its clear that it can't go into the Irish Sea. Which means either the UK is staying formally aligned to the EEA (as we are de facto anyway) or the Republic of Ireland is being propelled out.
Either way there is trouble ahead. Perhaps for a giggle we could propose our fictional digital border model again - the one that hasn't been invented and not implemented anywhere in the world.
Total bollocks, just as it always was.
The EU can fudge it and agree to Trusted Trader schemes etc - but only if they're prepared to compromise.
Or if they refuse to compromise and we refuse a border in the Irish Sea then they can choose to put a border on Ireland.
Or if they refuse to compromise, we refuse a border in the Irish Sea, they refuse to put a border on Ireland then they can put a border between Ireland and the rest of the Single Market.
Or if they refuse to compromise, we refuse a border in the Irish Sea, they refuse to put a border on Ireland, and they refuse to put a border between Ireland and the rest of the Single Market then there won't be a border anywhere and the whole problem goes away.
Either way, we don't need to concede. Just as we never did, so long as we were prepared to put the ball in their court. Because they're better off compromising than they are putting a border up themselves or having No Deal.
We put a border in our own country so that I now need a license and do customs paperwork to send products to Belfast.
And you claim we don't need to concede. Feels like we conceded massively.
It sucks for the DUP but quite frankly in the 2019 and 2020 negotiations Northern Ireland was (rightly) not our top priority, getting Britain out of the EU was the top priority.
Now that's no longer the case. The threats of a No Deal for Britain, that flights could be grounded, medicine halted or any of that other claptrap are now gone forever. So what chips do the EU have?
Lol - trade? supply of power? the rest of the world backing them and not us? They can demonstrate that the perfidious Brits negotiate deals in bad faith and then renege on them. That is what the Americans are telling us and they are supposed to be one of our key partners going forward.
I know that you have this view that we are now uber alles and can just ignore the rules we dislike. Apparently we have ministers who also subscribe to that world view.
The big problem is that trade is bilateral and multilateral, and the rest of the world disagrees with our interpretation as to how trade works.
Yes none of that matters.
"Ignoring rules you dislike" is realpolitik and all parties are doing it. The EU should have agreed to a Trusted Trader scheme by now, they haven't, so entirely acceptable for us to follow the rules and invoke Article 16 or unilaterally extend if they don't compromise before the end of the month.
If the EU won't compromise and meet its obligations then we can exercise our rights however we choose. The rest of the world is moot.
Besides the rest of the world aren't backing them despite that being the spin of FBPE Eurofanatics like yourself since you joined the yellow peril. The rest of the world understands that divorces are messy and only wants to see peace in Northern Ireland but doesn't care about "the integrity of the Single Market" or the rest of that bollocks. Hence Biden rightly calling for compromise, so the ball is in the EU's court to compromise.
Leaving aside the content (which I on balance disagree with), I'm struck by how fluent she is - barely glancing at her notes, she flows in a way she never did as PM. If she was a new backbencher she'd be earmarked for promotion...
It's noticeable on my local social media (which is full of Tories) that people are fine with most aspects of the current semi-lockdown except for the confusing travel policy. The amber list baffles everyone and the formal definition as being for emergencies has been totally lost.
A one-month delay to get to 80/60 (1st/2nd) vaccination of adults with some tweaks for weddings etc. seems to me a reasonable line that most people would accept.
I would accept a firm one month delay or a firm commitment of open when we reach 80/60 but not a we will judge it again in a months time because there will always be risks and always be further mitigating actions that can be taken. Under those circumstances I think a one month delay is more than likely a 9 month delay in reality.
We will be at 80/60 on the 21st of June, at current rates.
A 4 week delay would make that 90/82, at current rates.
90/82 is acceptable as well, although not much higher than 90 as that may never be reached? Just some clarity on a plausible route to normality this summer.
I would be impressed if we get to 90% fully jabbed.
What would be interesting is if the Government comes out with a target number for each figure.
Any target would surely have to be "offered" (perhaps + x weeks).
A government target less than 100% tells people they can refuse it, it doesn't matter, other people will pick up the slakc.
Of course the government might actually be targetting 90%, it is marking it a target that is the problem.
And my brother and future sister in law would miss out on their wedding, potentially by two days.
EDIT: I now see the Independent:
"Boris Johnson is determined to lift the 30-person limit on weddings on 21 June, even if other lockdown restrictions remain in place, according to reports.
While the prime minister may decide to keep social distancing precautions remain in place, unlimited guest lists are set to be permitted, although wedding guests will still be required to wear masks when not eating and drinking, according to The Times"
It's the hope that gets you
As if the masks thing at weddings is enforceable! Just have a glass in your hand FFS. My wife was furious when she read that: “who would want people in masks at their wedding? And can we dance?”
The government needs to lift the wedding rules on 21 June and stop already with the petty little caveats. Enough.
My brother and SIL wouldn't mind.
Like most people they have a short ceremony, followed by a reception; in their case at the same venue.
Having guests wear masks at the ceremony is not a big deal. For the rest of the evening will be spent with a glass in hand (alcoholic or not)
Dancing?
In any case, the Times today again says weddings limit will be lifted come what may on 21 June. Which is good news.
So why not for christenings? Or funerals? Or birthday parties? Or barmitzvahs? Or other celebrations? There is absolutely no sense to any of this. It is arbitrary and capricious.
Because there is a huge Wedding industry that may collapse, I presume (not to mention the big wedding expectation)
The Christening/Barmitzvah industry is a much smaller affair..... And the funeral industry isn't really based around big funerals....
Well, there's a bloody great hospitality industry, even bigger than the wedding sector, which is being crucified by this "fuck business" government.
If there's a month's delay that's the summer season largely gone. The season when hospitality makes its money to survive the winter is March to September. It is already June and hospitality is still not open at full capacity. It has not been open at full capacity since March 24th last year. It has already had 3 winters in a row and now it looks as if it's going to get a 4th one. This is, frankly, unsurvivable.
My own work - which depends on the abandonment of social distancing - has also collapsed.
But yes all those with comfy jobs they can do from home while accumulating savings are fine with lockdown and restrictions continuing forever.
And my brother and future sister in law would miss out on their wedding, potentially by two days.
EDIT: I now see the Independent:
"Boris Johnson is determined to lift the 30-person limit on weddings on 21 June, even if other lockdown restrictions remain in place, according to reports.
While the prime minister may decide to keep social distancing precautions remain in place, unlimited guest lists are set to be permitted, although wedding guests will still be required to wear masks when not eating and drinking, according to The Times"
It's the hope that gets you
As if the masks thing at weddings is enforceable! Just have a glass in your hand FFS. My wife was furious when she read that: “who would want people in masks at their wedding? And can we dance?”
The government needs to lift the wedding rules on 21 June and stop already with the petty little caveats. Enough.
My brother and SIL wouldn't mind.
Like most people they have a short ceremony, followed by a reception; in their case at the same venue.
Having guests wear masks at the ceremony is not a big deal. For the rest of the evening will be spent with a glass in hand (alcoholic or not)
Dancing?
In any case, the Times today again says weddings limit will be lifted come what may on 21 June. Which is good news.
So why not for christenings? Or funerals? Or birthday parties? Or barmitzvahs? Or other celebrations? There is absolutely no sense to any of this. It is arbitrary and capricious.
Because there is a huge Wedding industry that may collapse, I presume (not to mention the big wedding expectation)
The Christening/Barmitzvah industry is a much smaller affair..... And the funeral industry isn't really based around big funerals....
Also because the government promised brides an early decision on 24 May then temporised – many have now had to pay their nonrefundable deposits.
As it happens, though, I think christenings are included in the liberalisation – at least that is what I remember reading in yesterday's Times.
If true I think we can forget opening up on the 21st. In fact we need to go back into a (short) period of greater restrictions now, otherwise the NHS is going to be stuffed in by next month, never mind August.
We need everyone vaccinated, asap, but that’s not going to happen until the end of the summer due to supply issues.
It is actually never happening as vaccination is not compulsory.
Given about 20-25% of the population are anti Vaxxers and will not get the vaccination, the most we can get it up to it is about 75-80% double vaccinated from 50% now
There is no evidence that 20-25% of the population are anti-vaxers.
In fact the reverse.
1) Various polls state that the number who say they won't take the vaccine are in the single digits. 2) Wales has achieved 87% (using ONS 2019 - so that might be 84%) and is still going up.
Mike has totally missed the bigger news....Times says delay to Step 4 is looking more like a month delay, in order to get more people (fully) vaccinated.
If only we had a massive supply of vaccines sitting in a warehouse doing nothing.
I think one thing that needs to be examined is, if the government does not deliver on the 21st June, what scale of protests both passive and active may we see? Speaking to a friend who is in the police, they're concerned there may be a number of issues if any delay happens.
The devil may be in the detail. Provided the government does not reimpose any restrictions, any postponement will probably be greeted with a resigned shrug. Weddings are a grey area, since many couples will already have made arrangements on the current timetable, though the mood music has been that, whatever else happens, the weddings rules will still be relaxed.
Totally agree with Mike. And what a great quote this is:
"TMay’s core argument is that the UK, “one of the most heavily vaccinated countries in the world”, is the nation that is the one that is “most reluctant to give its citizens the freedoms those vaccinations should support”."
Indeed. But it is not just the travel industry she should be speaking up for but all businesses forced to operate at less than half capacity for 16 months now - when they have even been allowed to open. Enough of this.
The government is throwing away all the advantages of its vaccination programme. It seems to be adopting a zero-Covid strategy. This is nonsense. There will never be zero-Covid so people will have to live with the risk, just as we do for every other disease.
Keep doing the vaccinations. Increase them. And stop trying to micro-manage people and businesses.
A number of figures in hospitality and entertainment e.g. Luke Johnson have said they are fully opening on 21st come what may.
Politics could get really interesting shortly.
Yes and Andrew Lloyd Webber.
I'd go.
Voluntarily watching an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical demonstrates true dedication to your cause.
LOL absolutely. THAT is the length to which I am prepared to go for my principles.
The Guardian Weekend magazine used to have a "missing consonants" feature (basically, remove one consonant to transform a phrase in a humorous way). By far the best one they came up with was "Andrew Lloyd Webber produces another hit musical." Still makes me laugh twenty odd years later.
Even having called it "freedom day" doesn't look such a bright move by our PM, now, does it?
As always its tactically brilliant (mega headlines) and strategically stupid.
The biggest example of which is playing out at the G7. No, we can't sign a deal for headlines and then renege on it months later. For some unknown reason our friends and future trade deal partners think this behaviour isn't conducive to trust and have told us so clearly.
As for the comments in the Commons yesterday what is funniest of all is that the former leader of the Tory Party and Prime Minister is a far better leader of the opposition than sirkeir.
The purpose of the protocol was to preserve peace in Northern Ireland
Its implementation appears to be putting that under serious strain
So it is reasonable to say “is there a better way”
Fetishising “The Deal” is a huge mistake.
Though the Tories did fetishise the "oven ready deal" in 2019. I agree it was a huge mistake.
The way to minimise the Irish Sea Border is for our government to agree to abide by dynamic agreement to abide by Single Market regulations nationwide.
If your suggestion is the UK abides by Single Market regulations against its will then that's as pathetic as Brexiteers saying the solution is to rip the Republic of Ireland out of the Single Market against its will.
We *are* abiding by its regulations by our own will. You make the correct point though - there is no solution to the Irish Border issue. It was always the Elephant in the room and here we are half a year on from the deal and the elephant is still there.
I know that you don't believe there has to be a border anywhere but the people in charge of the various countries and markets do. If as we insist the UK is free to change its standards from the EEA then a border has to go somewhere.
It can't go on Ireland. Its clear that it can't go into the Irish Sea. Which means either the UK is staying formally aligned to the EEA (as we are de facto anyway) or the Republic of Ireland is being propelled out.
Either way there is trouble ahead. Perhaps for a giggle we could propose our fictional digital border model again - the one that hasn't been invented and not implemented anywhere in the world.
Total bollocks, just as it always was.
The EU can fudge it and agree to Trusted Trader schemes etc - but only if they're prepared to compromise.
Or if they refuse to compromise and we refuse a border in the Irish Sea then they can choose to put a border on Ireland.
Or if they refuse to compromise, we refuse a border in the Irish Sea, they refuse to put a border on Ireland then they can put a border between Ireland and the rest of the Single Market.
Or if they refuse to compromise, we refuse a border in the Irish Sea, they refuse to put a border on Ireland, and they refuse to put a border between Ireland and the rest of the Single Market then there won't be a border anywhere and the whole problem goes away.
Either way, we don't need to concede. Just as we never did, so long as we were prepared to put the ball in their court. Because they're better off compromising than they are putting a border up themselves or having No Deal.
We put a border in our own country so that I now need a license and do customs paperwork to send products to Belfast.
And you claim we don't need to concede. Feels like we conceded massively.
It sucks for the DUP but quite frankly in the 2019 and 2020 negotiations Northern Ireland was (rightly) not our top priority, getting Britain out of the EU was the top priority.
Now that's no longer the case. The threats of a No Deal for Britain, that flights could be grounded, medicine halted or any of that other claptrap are now gone forever. So what chips do the EU have?
Lol - trade? supply of power? the rest of the world backing them and not us? They can demonstrate that the perfidious Brits negotiate deals in bad faith and then renege on them. That is what the Americans are telling us and they are supposed to be one of our key partners going forward.
I know that you have this view that we are now uber alles and can just ignore the rules we dislike. Apparently we have ministers who also subscribe to that world view.
The big problem is that trade is bilateral and multilateral, and the rest of the world disagrees with our interpretation as to how trade works.
You are arguing with a brainwashed automaton that thinks everything Brexity is wonderful and Boris Johnson is the Messiah. He is the Johnson loving equivalent of a swooning Corbynite. If he could he would chant "oooo, Boris Johnson". He has no understanding of trade or business or much else that I can tell, and pontificates on everything as though he is an expert, even though he clearly is not. I guess it is his hobby.
Give it a rest, you don't like PT, we get it. No-one is impressed with the poor attempts at bullying.
I don't dislike him as I don't know him. I dislike his nonsense posts and he is regularly very rude to others. I am sorry if you think it is bullying and I will have to reflect on it, but I have often suggested to him he gives his opinions as opinions, but he insists on presenting misinformation and highly biased opinion as fact. Thank you though, for mentioning the suggestion of bullying I will try to be more objective.
Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said it was "highly unlikely" the full relaxation of coronavirus restrictions will go ahead later this month.
(Telegraph blog)
Is that said with regret/anger/outrage - or in being four-square behind whatever the Government does?
I have no idea what Labour or the LibDems would do in the alternative. It's why, politically, the Government won't take much of a hit.
It would be great if the Lib Dems could be standing up for liberalism.
Instead they seem to want to stand up for the illiberal Green Belt and telling people they can't build on their own land and want to say nothing at all about possibly the greatest peacetime restriction on civil liberties this country has seen in the modern era all while the NHS is at zero risk of imminent collapse.
There is nothing liberal about building all over the Green Belt and to be fair to the LDs they did oppose Covid vaccination passports even if they have not been as anti lockdown as Reform UK.
You don't know what liberalism is.
The state telling people they can't build on their own land is illiberal. Just because you like the Green Built doesn't stop it from being an illiberal big state intervention.
So is the state telling people they can't inject heroin into their own veins.
Absolutely.
It is my longstanding opinion that if people are buying heroin it would be better to get it from a pharmacy like Boots than knife or gun wielding criminal gangsters.
Liberalism. You might want to familiarise yourself with the principle.
Indeed. What does it matter if people notionally have a positive test but aren't sick with it? Many will be perfectly healthy schoolchildren who would be none the wiser had they not been tested. Similarly you will have a large group who are vaxxed and fail a LFT but are not sick.
In Polterghost news when I came into the office this morning a small block of wood with two large rusty nails sticking upward was in the middle of the floor. The block is an offcut which like the others had been swept into the corner awaiting final removal as I complete the demolition / removal work of the former bank fittings.
There is no rational explanation for how it transported itself from one place to the other.
Hmmmm.... wake us up when all the chairs get stacked on the table.....
That would be safer than placing rusty nails where I can tread on them!
Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said it was "highly unlikely" the full relaxation of coronavirus restrictions will go ahead later this month.
(Telegraph blog)
Is that said with regret/anger/outrage - or in being four-square behind whatever the Government does?
I have no idea what Labour or the LibDems would do in the alternative. It's why, politically, the Government won't take much of a hit.
It would be great if the Lib Dems could be standing up for liberalism.
Instead they seem to want to stand up for the illiberal Green Belt and telling people they can't build on their own land and want to say nothing at all about possibly the greatest peacetime restriction on civil liberties this country has seen in the modern era all while the NHS is at zero risk of imminent collapse.
There is nothing liberal about building all over the Green Belt and to be fair to the LDs they did oppose Covid vaccination passports even if they have not been as anti lockdown as Reform UK.
You don't know what liberalism is.
The state telling people they can't build on their own land is illiberal. Just because you like the Green Built doesn't stop it from being an illiberal big state intervention.
So is the state telling people they can't inject heroin into their own veins.
Absolutely.
It is my longstanding opinion that if people are buying heroin it would be better to get it from a pharmacy like Boots than knife or gun wielding criminal gangsters.
Liberalism. You might want to familiarise yourself with the principle.
"From a pharmacy like boots." Who are you to dictate where I get my heroin from? Does the government have a patent on the opium poppy?
Your knee jerk big state interventionism sickens me.
Indeed. What does it matter if people notionally have a positive test but aren't sick with it? Many will be perfectly healthy schoolchildren who would be none the wiser had they not been tested. Similarly you will have a large group who are vaxxed and fail a LFT but are not sick.
We need to get over this 'cases' thing asap.
Have they never heard of the 7-10 day lag time between case numbers and hospitalisation?
Not that I'm saying PHE are wrong but they are probably a week early in their comments.
And my brother and future sister in law would miss out on their wedding, potentially by two days.
EDIT: I now see the Independent:
"Boris Johnson is determined to lift the 30-person limit on weddings on 21 June, even if other lockdown restrictions remain in place, according to reports.
While the prime minister may decide to keep social distancing precautions remain in place, unlimited guest lists are set to be permitted, although wedding guests will still be required to wear masks when not eating and drinking, according to The Times"
It's the hope that gets you
As if the masks thing at weddings is enforceable! Just have a glass in your hand FFS. My wife was furious when she read that: “who would want people in masks at their wedding? And can we dance?”
The government needs to lift the wedding rules on 21 June and stop already with the petty little caveats. Enough.
My brother and SIL wouldn't mind.
Like most people they have a short ceremony, followed by a reception; in their case at the same venue.
Having guests wear masks at the ceremony is not a big deal. For the rest of the evening will be spent with a glass in hand (alcoholic or not)
Dancing?
In any case, the Times today again says weddings limit will be lifted come what may on 21 June. Which is good news.
So why not for christenings? Or funerals? Or birthday parties? Or barmitzvahs? Or other celebrations? There is absolutely no sense to any of this. It is arbitrary and capricious.
Because there is a huge Wedding industry that may collapse, I presume (not to mention the big wedding expectation)
The Christening/Barmitzvah industry is a much smaller affair..... And the funeral industry isn't really based around big funerals....
Well, there's a bloody great hospitality industry, even bigger than the wedding sector, which is being crucified by this "fuck business" government.
If there's a month's delay that's the summer season largely gone. The season when hospitality makes its money to survive the winter is March to September. It is already June and hospitality is still not open at full capacity. It has not been open at full capacity since March 24th last year. It has already had 3 winters in a row and now it looks as if it's going to get a 4th one. This is, frankly, unsurvivable.
My own work - which depends on the abandonment of social distancing - has also collapsed.
But yes all those with comfy jobs they can do from home while accumulating savings are fine with lockdown and restrictions continuing forever.
I saw a wonderful tweet on Twitter. The chap said:
"How about a rule whereby anyone who calls for lockdown extensions has to first publicly reveal what their bank balance was on 1 March 2020, and what it was on 1 May 2021..."
And my brother and future sister in law would miss out on their wedding, potentially by two days.
EDIT: I now see the Independent:
"Boris Johnson is determined to lift the 30-person limit on weddings on 21 June, even if other lockdown restrictions remain in place, according to reports.
While the prime minister may decide to keep social distancing precautions remain in place, unlimited guest lists are set to be permitted, although wedding guests will still be required to wear masks when not eating and drinking, according to The Times"
It's the hope that gets you
As if the masks thing at weddings is enforceable! Just have a glass in your hand FFS. My wife was furious when she read that: “who would want people in masks at their wedding? And can we dance?”
The government needs to lift the wedding rules on 21 June and stop already with the petty little caveats. Enough.
My brother and SIL wouldn't mind.
Like most people they have a short ceremony, followed by a reception; in their case at the same venue.
Having guests wear masks at the ceremony is not a big deal. For the rest of the evening will be spent with a glass in hand (alcoholic or not)
Dancing?
In any case, the Times today again says weddings limit will be lifted come what may on 21 June. Which is good news.
So why not for christenings? Or funerals? Or birthday parties? Or barmitzvahs? Or other celebrations? There is absolutely no sense to any of this. It is arbitrary and capricious.
Because there is a huge Wedding industry that may collapse, I presume (not to mention the big wedding expectation)
The Christening/Barmitzvah industry is a much smaller affair..... And the funeral industry isn't really based around big funerals....
Well, there's a bloody great hospitality industry, even bigger than the wedding sector, which is being crucified by this "fuck business" government.
If there's a month's delay that's the summer season largely gone. The season when hospitality makes its money to survive the winter is March to September. It is already June and hospitality is still not open at full capacity. It has not been open at full capacity since March 24th last year. It has already had 3 winters in a row and now it looks as if it's going to get a 4th one. This is, frankly, unsurvivable.
My own work - which depends on the abandonment of social distancing - has also collapsed.
But yes all those with comfy jobs they can do from home while accumulating savings are fine with lockdown and restrictions continuing forever.
I am trying to get proof of my military service to apply for an Armed Forces railcard. There is simply no one at the relevant department and hasn't been since last March. No one. Not working from home, not long waiting times on the phone. Nothing. For 15 months whoever works at that department has been doing nothing. Probably quite happily.
Even having called it "freedom day" doesn't look such a bright move by our PM, now, does it?
As always its tactically brilliant (mega headlines) and strategically stupid.
The biggest example of which is playing out at the G7. No, we can't sign a deal for headlines and then renege on it months later. For some unknown reason our friends and future trade deal partners think this behaviour isn't conducive to trust and have told us so clearly.
As for the comments in the Commons yesterday what is funniest of all is that the former leader of the Tory Party and Prime Minister is a far better leader of the opposition than sirkeir.
The purpose of the protocol was to preserve peace in Northern Ireland
Its implementation appears to be putting that under serious strain
So it is reasonable to say “is there a better way”
Fetishising “The Deal” is a huge mistake.
Though the Tories did fetishise the "oven ready deal" in 2019. I agree it was a huge mistake.
The way to minimise the Irish Sea Border is for our government to agree to abide by dynamic agreement to abide by Single Market regulations nationwide.
If your suggestion is the UK abides by Single Market regulations against its will then that's as pathetic as Brexiteers saying the solution is to rip the Republic of Ireland out of the Single Market against its will.
We *are* abiding by its regulations by our own will. You make the correct point though - there is no solution to the Irish Border issue. It was always the Elephant in the room and here we are half a year on from the deal and the elephant is still there.
I know that you don't believe there has to be a border anywhere but the people in charge of the various countries and markets do. If as we insist the UK is free to change its standards from the EEA then a border has to go somewhere.
It can't go on Ireland. Its clear that it can't go into the Irish Sea. Which means either the UK is staying formally aligned to the EEA (as we are de facto anyway) or the Republic of Ireland is being propelled out.
Either way there is trouble ahead. Perhaps for a giggle we could propose our fictional digital border model again - the one that hasn't been invented and not implemented anywhere in the world.
Total bollocks, just as it always was.
The EU can fudge it and agree to Trusted Trader schemes etc - but only if they're prepared to compromise.
Or if they refuse to compromise and we refuse a border in the Irish Sea then they can choose to put a border on Ireland.
Or if they refuse to compromise, we refuse a border in the Irish Sea, they refuse to put a border on Ireland then they can put a border between Ireland and the rest of the Single Market.
Or if they refuse to compromise, we refuse a border in the Irish Sea, they refuse to put a border on Ireland, and they refuse to put a border between Ireland and the rest of the Single Market then there won't be a border anywhere and the whole problem goes away.
Either way, we don't need to concede. Just as we never did, so long as we were prepared to put the ball in their court. Because they're better off compromising than they are putting a border up themselves or having No Deal.
We put a border in our own country so that I now need a license and do customs paperwork to send products to Belfast.
And you claim we don't need to concede. Feels like we conceded massively.
It sucks for the DUP but quite frankly in the 2019 and 2020 negotiations Northern Ireland was (rightly) not our top priority, getting Britain out of the EU was the top priority.
Now that's no longer the case. The threats of a No Deal for Britain, that flights could be grounded, medicine halted or any of that other claptrap are now gone forever. So what chips do the EU have?
Lol - trade? supply of power? the rest of the world backing them and not us? They can demonstrate that the perfidious Brits negotiate deals in bad faith and then renege on them. That is what the Americans are telling us and they are supposed to be one of our key partners going forward.
I know that you have this view that we are now uber alles and can just ignore the rules we dislike. Apparently we have ministers who also subscribe to that world view.
The big problem is that trade is bilateral and multilateral, and the rest of the world disagrees with our interpretation as to how trade works.
Yes none of that matters.
"Ignoring rules you dislike" is realpolitik and all parties are doing it. The EU should have agreed to a Trusted Trader scheme by now, they haven't, so entirely acceptable for us to follow the rules and invoke Article 16 or unilaterally extend if they don't compromise before the end of the month.
If the EU won't compromise and meet its obligations then we can exercise our rights however we choose. The rest of the world is moot.
Besides the rest of the world aren't backing them despite that being the spin of FBPE Eurofanatics like yourself since you joined the yellow peril. The rest of the world understands that divorces are messy and only wants to see peace in Northern Ireland but doesn't care about "the integrity of the Single Market" or the rest of that bollocks. Hence Biden rightly calling for compromise, so the ball is in the EU's court to compromise.
Funny kind of compromise when its unilateral. That isn't compromise. Biden told both of us to compromise. You can't cite him and then state that you won't compromise yourself...
Indeed. What does it matter if people notionally have a positive test but aren't sick with it? Many will be perfectly healthy schoolchildren who would be none the wiser had they not been tested. Similarly you will have a large group who are vaxxed and fail a LFT but are not sick.
We need to get over this 'cases' thing asap.
Have they never heard of the 7-10 day lag time between case numbers and hospitalisation?
Not that I'm saying PHE are wrong but they are probably a week early in their comments.
The Delta variant has been with us for several weeks – so why can't they extrapolate from the 'cases' earlier in the spring?
Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said it was "highly unlikely" the full relaxation of coronavirus restrictions will go ahead later this month.
(Telegraph blog)
Is that said with regret/anger/outrage - or in being four-square behind whatever the Government does?
I have no idea what Labour or the LibDems would do in the alternative. It's why, politically, the Government won't take much of a hit.
It would be great if the Lib Dems could be standing up for liberalism.
Instead they seem to want to stand up for the illiberal Green Belt and telling people they can't build on their own land and want to say nothing at all about possibly the greatest peacetime restriction on civil liberties this country has seen in the modern era all while the NHS is at zero risk of imminent collapse.
There is nothing liberal about building all over the Green Belt and to be fair to the LDs they did oppose Covid vaccination passports even if they have not been as anti lockdown as Reform UK.
You don't know what liberalism is.
The state telling people they can't build on their own land is illiberal. Just because you like the Green Built doesn't stop it from being an illiberal big state intervention.
So is the state telling people they can't inject heroin into their own veins.
Absolutely.
It is my longstanding opinion that if people are buying heroin it would be better to get it from a pharmacy like Boots than knife or gun wielding criminal gangsters.
Liberalism. You might want to familiarise yourself with the principle.
Philip, I think you are confusing Liberalism with Libertarianism, which while there are some cross overs they are very different: Liberalism: NOUN willingness to respect or accept behaviour or opinions different from one's own; openness to new ideas. "one of the basic tenets of liberalism is tolerance" the holding of political views that are socially progressive and promote social welfare. "the borough prides itself on being a great bastion of liberalism and diversity" theology the belief that many traditional beliefs are dispensable, invalidated by modern thought, or liable to change. a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise. "representative democracy operates under the principles of classical liberalism" the doctrine of a Liberal Party or (in the UK) the Liberal Democrats. "working-class support for Liberalism"
Even having called it "freedom day" doesn't look such a bright move by our PM, now, does it?
As always its tactically brilliant (mega headlines) and strategically stupid.
The biggest example of which is playing out at the G7. No, we can't sign a deal for headlines and then renege on it months later. For some unknown reason our friends and future trade deal partners think this behaviour isn't conducive to trust and have told us so clearly.
As for the comments in the Commons yesterday what is funniest of all is that the former leader of the Tory Party and Prime Minister is a far better leader of the opposition than sirkeir.
The purpose of the protocol was to preserve peace in Northern Ireland
Its implementation appears to be putting that under serious strain
So it is reasonable to say “is there a better way”
Fetishising “The Deal” is a huge mistake.
Though the Tories did fetishise the "oven ready deal" in 2019. I agree it was a huge mistake.
The way to minimise the Irish Sea Border is for our government to agree to abide by dynamic agreement to abide by Single Market regulations nationwide.
If your suggestion is the UK abides by Single Market regulations against its will then that's as pathetic as Brexiteers saying the solution is to rip the Republic of Ireland out of the Single Market against its will.
We *are* abiding by its regulations by our own will. You make the correct point though - there is no solution to the Irish Border issue. It was always the Elephant in the room and here we are half a year on from the deal and the elephant is still there.
I know that you don't believe there has to be a border anywhere but the people in charge of the various countries and markets do. If as we insist the UK is free to change its standards from the EEA then a border has to go somewhere.
It can't go on Ireland. Its clear that it can't go into the Irish Sea. Which means either the UK is staying formally aligned to the EEA (as we are de facto anyway) or the Republic of Ireland is being propelled out.
Either way there is trouble ahead. Perhaps for a giggle we could propose our fictional digital border model again - the one that hasn't been invented and not implemented anywhere in the world.
Total bollocks, just as it always was.
The EU can fudge it and agree to Trusted Trader schemes etc - but only if they're prepared to compromise.
Or if they refuse to compromise and we refuse a border in the Irish Sea then they can choose to put a border on Ireland.
Or if they refuse to compromise, we refuse a border in the Irish Sea, they refuse to put a border on Ireland then they can put a border between Ireland and the rest of the Single Market.
Or if they refuse to compromise, we refuse a border in the Irish Sea, they refuse to put a border on Ireland, and they refuse to put a border between Ireland and the rest of the Single Market then there won't be a border anywhere and the whole problem goes away.
Either way, we don't need to concede. Just as we never did, so long as we were prepared to put the ball in their court. Because they're better off compromising than they are putting a border up themselves or having No Deal.
We put a border in our own country so that I now need a license and do customs paperwork to send products to Belfast.
And you claim we don't need to concede. Feels like we conceded massively.
It sucks for the DUP but quite frankly in the 2019 and 2020 negotiations Northern Ireland was (rightly) not our top priority, getting Britain out of the EU was the top priority.
Now that's no longer the case. The threats of a No Deal for Britain, that flights could be grounded, medicine halted or any of that other claptrap are now gone forever. So what chips do the EU have?
Lol - trade? supply of power? the rest of the world backing them and not us? They can demonstrate that the perfidious Brits negotiate deals in bad faith and then renege on them. That is what the Americans are telling us and they are supposed to be one of our key partners going forward.
I know that you have this view that we are now uber alles and can just ignore the rules we dislike. Apparently we have ministers who also subscribe to that world view.
The big problem is that trade is bilateral and multilateral, and the rest of the world disagrees with our interpretation as to how trade works.
You are arguing with a brainwashed automaton that thinks everything Brexity is wonderful and Boris Johnson is the Messiah. He is the Johnson loving equivalent of a swooning Corbynite. If he could he would chant "oooo, Boris Johnson". He has no understanding of trade or business or much else that I can tell, and pontificates on everything as though he is an expert, even though he clearly is not. I guess it is his hobby.
Give it a rest, you don't like PT, we get it. No-one is impressed with the poor attempts at bullying.
I don't dislike him as I don't know him. I dislike his nonsense posts and he is regularly very rude to others. I am sorry if you think it is bullying and I will have to reflect on it, but I have often suggested to him he gives his opinions as opinions, but he insists on presenting misinformation and highly biased opinion as fact. Thank you though, for mentioning the suggestion of bullying I will try to be more objective.
I am not rude to others, unless you consider disagreeing with someone rudeness. I say my own opinions and disagree with people but despite all your ad hominem goading of me I still reply on topic addressing the issues and not the person.
Of course my opinions are my opinions. That goes without saying.
Indeed. What does it matter if people notionally have a positive test but aren't sick with it? Many will be perfectly healthy schoolchildren who would be none the wiser had they not been tested. Similarly you will have a large group who are vaxxed and fail a LFT but are not sick.
We need to get over this 'cases' thing asap.
Have they never heard of the 7-10 day lag time between case numbers and hospitalisation?
Not that I'm saying PHE are wrong but they are probably a week early in their comments.
1) Cases more than doubled between 17th May and 2nd June 2) We are not seeing a matching take off in hospitalisations.
Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said it was "highly unlikely" the full relaxation of coronavirus restrictions will go ahead later this month.
(Telegraph blog)
Is that said with regret/anger/outrage - or in being four-square behind whatever the Government does?
I have no idea what Labour or the LibDems would do in the alternative. It's why, politically, the Government won't take much of a hit.
It would be great if the Lib Dems could be standing up for liberalism.
Instead they seem to want to stand up for the illiberal Green Belt and telling people they can't build on their own land and want to say nothing at all about possibly the greatest peacetime restriction on civil liberties this country has seen in the modern era all while the NHS is at zero risk of imminent collapse.
There is nothing liberal about building all over the Green Belt and to be fair to the LDs they did oppose Covid vaccination passports even if they have not been as anti lockdown as Reform UK.
You don't know what liberalism is.
The state telling people they can't build on their own land is illiberal. Just because you like the Green Built doesn't stop it from being an illiberal big state intervention.
So is the state telling people they can't inject heroin into their own veins.
Absolutely.
It is my longstanding opinion that if people are buying heroin it would be better to get it from a pharmacy like Boots than knife or gun wielding criminal gangsters.
Liberalism. You might want to familiarise yourself with the principle.
I have zero interest in chasing the dragon but many people do. Saying "thats illegal" and threatening then with the polis doesn't stop them as its driven by underlying needs like addiction and circumstance.
The big problem with smack isn't addiction, its crime and the peddling of uncontroled adulterated smack. So yes, time (decades ago) to legalise all drugs with state controlled regulation of it. Make class A drug use as societally unpopular as smoking.
Leaving aside the content (which I on balance disagree with), I'm struck by how fluent she is - barely glancing at her notes, she flows in a way she never did as PM. If she was a new backbencher she'd be earmarked for promotion...
It's noticeable on my local social media (which is full of Tories) that people are fine with most aspects of the current semi-lockdown except for the confusing travel policy. The amber list baffles everyone and the formal definition as being for emergencies has been totally lost.
A one-month delay to get to 80/60 (1st/2nd) vaccination of adults with some tweaks for weddings etc. seems to me a reasonable line that most people would accept.
Your local social media is basically the reverse of my social group. We want an end to internal restrictions ASAP, don't really care all that much about foreign travel.
Masks are the single most hated thing, they desperately need to go. They are also wrecking lots of open businesses, to which people aren't going because they are made to wear them, and wearing them makes the whole experience too unpleasant to be worthwhile.
My biggest personal bugbear is the ridiculous ban on singing in choirs and churches - this should have gone months ago, but the public health idiots are clinging to it like limpets.
It's been obvious for some time that the only restrictions with any value are on foreign travel - had we had proper travel restrictions throughout the pandemic (ie full on hotel quarantine for everywhere in the world, like we should have had) we would now not have the Indian variant, and we would have almost zero cases. Last autumns wave was almost entirely seeded by foreign travel too.
We should have imposed hotel quarantine until we had jabbed a sensible number of people, then relaxed the situation for those double jabbed, and then relaxed further to counties with similar vaccination rates, before relaxing completely when our vaccine programme is complete.
The idea of relaxing foreign travel rules when I can't buy lunch in my local shop without wearing a mask is lunacy.
Compared with Alpha, there appears to be an increased risk of hospitalisation with Delta.
One thing to consider is that the chances of someone ending up in hospital are probably higher now than at any stage due to there not being much pressure on resources.
Even having called it "freedom day" doesn't look such a bright move by our PM, now, does it?
As always its tactically brilliant (mega headlines) and strategically stupid.
The biggest example of which is playing out at the G7. No, we can't sign a deal for headlines and then renege on it months later. For some unknown reason our friends and future trade deal partners think this behaviour isn't conducive to trust and have told us so clearly.
As for the comments in the Commons yesterday what is funniest of all is that the former leader of the Tory Party and Prime Minister is a far better leader of the opposition than sirkeir.
The purpose of the protocol was to preserve peace in Northern Ireland
Its implementation appears to be putting that under serious strain
So it is reasonable to say “is there a better way”
Fetishising “The Deal” is a huge mistake.
Though the Tories did fetishise the "oven ready deal" in 2019. I agree it was a huge mistake.
The way to minimise the Irish Sea Border is for our government to agree to abide by dynamic agreement to abide by Single Market regulations nationwide.
If your suggestion is the UK abides by Single Market regulations against its will then that's as pathetic as Brexiteers saying the solution is to rip the Republic of Ireland out of the Single Market against its will.
We *are* abiding by its regulations by our own will. You make the correct point though - there is no solution to the Irish Border issue. It was always the Elephant in the room and here we are half a year on from the deal and the elephant is still there.
I know that you don't believe there has to be a border anywhere but the people in charge of the various countries and markets do. If as we insist the UK is free to change its standards from the EEA then a border has to go somewhere.
It can't go on Ireland. Its clear that it can't go into the Irish Sea. Which means either the UK is staying formally aligned to the EEA (as we are de facto anyway) or the Republic of Ireland is being propelled out.
Either way there is trouble ahead. Perhaps for a giggle we could propose our fictional digital border model again - the one that hasn't been invented and not implemented anywhere in the world.
Total bollocks, just as it always was.
The EU can fudge it and agree to Trusted Trader schemes etc - but only if they're prepared to compromise.
Or if they refuse to compromise and we refuse a border in the Irish Sea then they can choose to put a border on Ireland.
Or if they refuse to compromise, we refuse a border in the Irish Sea, they refuse to put a border on Ireland then they can put a border between Ireland and the rest of the Single Market.
Or if they refuse to compromise, we refuse a border in the Irish Sea, they refuse to put a border on Ireland, and they refuse to put a border between Ireland and the rest of the Single Market then there won't be a border anywhere and the whole problem goes away.
Either way, we don't need to concede. Just as we never did, so long as we were prepared to put the ball in their court. Because they're better off compromising than they are putting a border up themselves or having No Deal.
We put a border in our own country so that I now need a license and do customs paperwork to send products to Belfast.
And you claim we don't need to concede. Feels like we conceded massively.
It sucks for the DUP but quite frankly in the 2019 and 2020 negotiations Northern Ireland was (rightly) not our top priority, getting Britain out of the EU was the top priority.
Now that's no longer the case. The threats of a No Deal for Britain, that flights could be grounded, medicine halted or any of that other claptrap are now gone forever. So what chips do the EU have?
Lol - trade? supply of power? the rest of the world backing them and not us? They can demonstrate that the perfidious Brits negotiate deals in bad faith and then renege on them. That is what the Americans are telling us and they are supposed to be one of our key partners going forward.
I know that you have this view that we are now uber alles and can just ignore the rules we dislike. Apparently we have ministers who also subscribe to that world view.
The big problem is that trade is bilateral and multilateral, and the rest of the world disagrees with our interpretation as to how trade works.
Yes none of that matters.
"Ignoring rules you dislike" is realpolitik and all parties are doing it. The EU should have agreed to a Trusted Trader scheme by now, they haven't, so entirely acceptable for us to follow the rules and invoke Article 16 or unilaterally extend if they don't compromise before the end of the month.
If the EU won't compromise and meet its obligations then we can exercise our rights however we choose. The rest of the world is moot.
Besides the rest of the world aren't backing them despite that being the spin of FBPE Eurofanatics like yourself since you joined the yellow peril. The rest of the world understands that divorces are messy and only wants to see peace in Northern Ireland but doesn't care about "the integrity of the Single Market" or the rest of that bollocks. Hence Biden rightly calling for compromise, so the ball is in the EU's court to compromise.
Funny kind of compromise when its unilateral. That isn't compromise. Biden told both of us to compromise. You can't cite him and then state that you won't compromise yourself...
It's only a compromise once both parties reach a mutually satisfactory agreement.
NOUN a political philosophy that advocates only minimal state intervention in the free market and the private lives of citizens.
...therefore allowing people to buy hard drugs from Boots or build a house wherever they liked would definitely be libertarian, but not necessarily liberal
Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said it was "highly unlikely" the full relaxation of coronavirus restrictions will go ahead later this month.
(Telegraph blog)
Is that said with regret/anger/outrage - or in being four-square behind whatever the Government does?
I have no idea what Labour or the LibDems would do in the alternative. It's why, politically, the Government won't take much of a hit.
It would be great if the Lib Dems could be standing up for liberalism.
Instead they seem to want to stand up for the illiberal Green Belt and telling people they can't build on their own land and want to say nothing at all about possibly the greatest peacetime restriction on civil liberties this country has seen in the modern era all while the NHS is at zero risk of imminent collapse.
There is nothing liberal about building all over the Green Belt and to be fair to the LDs they did oppose Covid vaccination passports even if they have not been as anti lockdown as Reform UK.
You don't know what liberalism is.
The state telling people they can't build on their own land is illiberal. Just because you like the Green Built doesn't stop it from being an illiberal big state intervention.
So is the state telling people they can't inject heroin into their own veins.
Absolutely.
It is my longstanding opinion that if people are buying heroin it would be better to get it from a pharmacy like Boots than knife or gun wielding criminal gangsters.
Liberalism. You might want to familiarise yourself with the principle.
I have zero interest in chasing the dragon but many people do. Saying "thats illegal" and threatening then with the polis doesn't stop them as its driven by underlying needs like addiction and circumstance.
The big problem with smack isn't addiction, its crime and the peddling of uncontroled adulterated smack. So yes, time (decades ago) to legalise all drugs with state controlled regulation of it. Make class A drug use as societally unpopular as smoking.
On this topic we can 100% agree.
Its good to see the Liberal Democrats have been edging towards liberalism on this topic too. They should do it more often. 👍
In Polterghost news when I came into the office this morning a small block of wood with two large rusty nails sticking upward was in the middle of the floor. The block is an offcut which like the others had been swept into the corner awaiting final removal as I complete the demolition / removal work of the former bank fittings.
There is no rational explanation for how it transported itself from one place to the other.
Hmmmm.... wake us up when all the chairs get stacked on the table.....
That would be safer than placing rusty nails where I can tread on them!
Obviously, "The Finn" placed his AI construct in the area of your building works. Find it and leave a bottle of Moskovaskya Crystal next to him as an offering.
Mike has totally missed the bigger news....Times says delay to Step 4 is looking more like a month delay, in order to get more people (fully) vaccinated.
If only we had a massive supply of vaccines sitting in a warehouse doing nothing.
I think one thing that needs to be examined is, if the government does not deliver on the 21st June, what scale of protests both passive and active may we see? Speaking to a friend who is in the police, they're concerned there may be a number of issues if any delay happens.
The devil may be in the detail. Provided the government does not reimpose any restrictions, any postponement will probably be greeted with a resigned shrug. Weddings are a grey area, since many couples will already have made arrangements on the current timetable, though the mood music has been that, whatever else happens, the weddings rules will still be relaxed.
Totally agree with Mike. And what a great quote this is:
"TMay’s core argument is that the UK, “one of the most heavily vaccinated countries in the world”, is the nation that is the one that is “most reluctant to give its citizens the freedoms those vaccinations should support”."
Indeed. But it is not just the travel industry she should be speaking up for but all businesses forced to operate at less than half capacity for 16 months now - when they have even been allowed to open. Enough of this.
The government is throwing away all the advantages of its vaccination programme. It seems to be adopting a zero-Covid strategy. This is nonsense. There will never be zero-Covid so people will have to live with the risk, just as we do for every other disease.
Keep doing the vaccinations. Increase them. And stop trying to micro-manage people and businesses.
A number of figures in hospitality and entertainment e.g. Luke Johnson have said they are fully opening on 21st come what may.
Politics could get really interesting shortly.
Yes and Andrew Lloyd Webber.
I'd go.
Voluntarily watching an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical demonstrates true dedication to your cause.
Frankly, I'm at a point where I'd go to a Radiohead gig and sing along just as mass civil disobedience, if they were willing to ignore the rules.
In Polterghost news when I came into the office this morning a small block of wood with two large rusty nails sticking upward was in the middle of the floor. The block is an offcut which like the others had been swept into the corner awaiting final removal as I complete the demolition / removal work of the former bank fittings.
There is no rational explanation for how it transported itself from one place to the other.
Hmmmm.... wake us up when all the chairs get stacked on the table.....
That would be safer than placing rusty nails where I can tread on them!
Obviously, "The Finn" placed his AI construct in the area of your building works. Find it and leave a bottle of Moskovaskya Crystal next to him as an offering.
If true I think we can forget opening up on the 21st. In fact we need to go back into a (short) period of greater restrictions now, otherwise the NHS is going to be stuffed in by next month, never mind August.
We need everyone vaccinated, asap, but that’s not going to happen until the end of the summer due to supply issues.
It is actually never happening as vaccination is not compulsory.
Given about 20% of the population are anti Vaxxers and will not get the vaccination, the most we can get it up to it is about 80% double vaccinated from 50% now
Everyone is a handwave for “as many as humanly possible in the pursuit of herd immunity”.
I think/hope we may well exceed 80%. 90+% looks achievable (not counting the very young, who fortunately don’t really suffer much from Covid.)
Even having called it "freedom day" doesn't look such a bright move by our PM, now, does it?
As always its tactically brilliant (mega headlines) and strategically stupid.
The biggest example of which is playing out at the G7. No, we can't sign a deal for headlines and then renege on it months later. For some unknown reason our friends and future trade deal partners think this behaviour isn't conducive to trust and have told us so clearly.
As for the comments in the Commons yesterday what is funniest of all is that the former leader of the Tory Party and Prime Minister is a far better leader of the opposition than sirkeir.
The purpose of the protocol was to preserve peace in Northern Ireland
Its implementation appears to be putting that under serious strain
So it is reasonable to say “is there a better way”
Fetishising “The Deal” is a huge mistake.
Though the Tories did fetishise the "oven ready deal" in 2019. I agree it was a huge mistake.
The way to minimise the Irish Sea Border is for our government to agree to abide by dynamic agreement to abide by Single Market regulations nationwide.
If your suggestion is the UK abides by Single Market regulations against its will then that's as pathetic as Brexiteers saying the solution is to rip the Republic of Ireland out of the Single Market against its will.
We *are* abiding by its regulations by our own will. You make the correct point though - there is no solution to the Irish Border issue. It was always the Elephant in the room and here we are half a year on from the deal and the elephant is still there.
I know that you don't believe there has to be a border anywhere but the people in charge of the various countries and markets do. If as we insist the UK is free to change its standards from the EEA then a border has to go somewhere.
It can't go on Ireland. Its clear that it can't go into the Irish Sea. Which means either the UK is staying formally aligned to the EEA (as we are de facto anyway) or the Republic of Ireland is being propelled out.
Either way there is trouble ahead. Perhaps for a giggle we could propose our fictional digital border model again - the one that hasn't been invented and not implemented anywhere in the world.
Total bollocks, just as it always was.
The EU can fudge it and agree to Trusted Trader schemes etc - but only if they're prepared to compromise.
Or if they refuse to compromise and we refuse a border in the Irish Sea then they can choose to put a border on Ireland.
Or if they refuse to compromise, we refuse a border in the Irish Sea, they refuse to put a border on Ireland then they can put a border between Ireland and the rest of the Single Market.
Or if they refuse to compromise, we refuse a border in the Irish Sea, they refuse to put a border on Ireland, and they refuse to put a border between Ireland and the rest of the Single Market then there won't be a border anywhere and the whole problem goes away.
Either way, we don't need to concede. Just as we never did, so long as we were prepared to put the ball in their court. Because they're better off compromising than they are putting a border up themselves or having No Deal.
We put a border in our own country so that I now need a license and do customs paperwork to send products to Belfast.
And you claim we don't need to concede. Feels like we conceded massively.
It sucks for the DUP but quite frankly in the 2019 and 2020 negotiations Northern Ireland was (rightly) not our top priority, getting Britain out of the EU was the top priority.
Now that's no longer the case. The threats of a No Deal for Britain, that flights could be grounded, medicine halted or any of that other claptrap are now gone forever. So what chips do the EU have?
Lol - trade? supply of power? the rest of the world backing them and not us? They can demonstrate that the perfidious Brits negotiate deals in bad faith and then renege on them. That is what the Americans are telling us and they are supposed to be one of our key partners going forward.
I know that you have this view that we are now uber alles and can just ignore the rules we dislike. Apparently we have ministers who also subscribe to that world view.
The big problem is that trade is bilateral and multilateral, and the rest of the world disagrees with our interpretation as to how trade works.
You are arguing with a brainwashed automaton that thinks everything Brexity is wonderful and Boris Johnson is the Messiah. He is the Johnson loving equivalent of a swooning Corbynite. If he could he would chant "oooo, Boris Johnson". He has no understanding of trade or business or much else that I can tell, and pontificates on everything as though he is an expert, even though he clearly is not. I guess it is his hobby.
Give it a rest, you don't like PT, we get it. No-one is impressed with the poor attempts at bullying.
I don't dislike him as I don't know him. I dislike his nonsense posts and he is regularly very rude to others. I am sorry if you think it is bullying and I will have to reflect on it, but I have often suggested to him he gives his opinions as opinions, but he insists on presenting misinformation and highly biased opinion as fact. Thank you though, for mentioning the suggestion of bullying I will try to be more objective.
I am not rude to others, unless you consider disagreeing with someone rudeness. I say my own opinions and disagree with people but despite all your ad hominem goading of me I still reply on topic addressing the issues and not the person.
Of course my opinions are my opinions. That goes without saying.
I don't have the time to look back Philip, but I recall many times when you have been highly rude and goading of others. However, if others or you believe I have bullied you then I unreservedly apologise. I will attempt to reform
Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said it was "highly unlikely" the full relaxation of coronavirus restrictions will go ahead later this month.
(Telegraph blog)
Is that said with regret/anger/outrage - or in being four-square behind whatever the Government does?
I have no idea what Labour or the LibDems would do in the alternative. It's why, politically, the Government won't take much of a hit.
It would be great if the Lib Dems could be standing up for liberalism.
Instead they seem to want to stand up for the illiberal Green Belt and telling people they can't build on their own land and want to say nothing at all about possibly the greatest peacetime restriction on civil liberties this country has seen in the modern era all while the NHS is at zero risk of imminent collapse.
There is nothing liberal about building all over the Green Belt and to be fair to the LDs they did oppose Covid vaccination passports even if they have not been as anti lockdown as Reform UK.
You don't know what liberalism is.
The state telling people they can't build on their own land is illiberal. Just because you like the Green Built doesn't stop it from being an illiberal big state intervention.
So is the state telling people they can't inject heroin into their own veins.
Absolutely.
It is my longstanding opinion that if people are buying heroin it would be better to get it from a pharmacy like Boots than knife or gun wielding criminal gangsters.
Liberalism. You might want to familiarise yourself with the principle.
I have zero interest in chasing the dragon but many people do. Saying "thats illegal" and threatening then with the polis doesn't stop them as its driven by underlying needs like addiction and circumstance.
The big problem with smack isn't addiction, its crime and the peddling of uncontroled adulterated smack. So yes, time (decades ago) to legalise all drugs with state controlled regulation of it. Make class A drug use as societally unpopular as smoking.
The racism involved in the beginning of the war on drugs is.. interesting....
In Polterghost news when I came into the office this morning a small block of wood with two large rusty nails sticking upward was in the middle of the floor. The block is an offcut which like the others had been swept into the corner awaiting final removal as I complete the demolition / removal work of the former bank fittings.
There is no rational explanation for how it transported itself from one place to the other.
Hmmmm.... wake us up when all the chairs get stacked on the table.....
That would be safer than placing rusty nails where I can tread on them!
Obviously, "The Finn" placed his AI construct in the area of your building works. Find it and leave a bottle of Moskovaskya Crystal next to him as an offering.
The real high rollers make em out of cocaine ...
A tiny figure, in the distance in Cyberspace, waves...
Gibson could really create images in your mind, couldn't he?
That alley, the laser silently scanning in the snow over the offerings....
Not having that - you reckon it’s true? They printed it off wiki? No way
They gave Mrs Biden a first edition copy of a Daphne Du Maurier book.
I actually subscribed to The Times to check this out, and the article doesn’t say that they printed it off wiki at all. It says
“ Government officials decided on the photo, taken by Melissa Highton, a dual UK-US national, after spotting it on Douglass’s Wikipedia page. Johnson handed the picture to Biden yesterday to mark their first meeting and Biden’s first foreign trip as president. The mural is painted on a wall at Lower Gilmore Place by the Scottish street artist Ross Blair, who goes by the name Trench-One. A Foreign Office official contacted Highton after seeing the picture.”
Vaccination status Data on all individuals in England vaccinated with COVID-19 vaccines is available in a national vaccination register (the National Immunisation Management System, NIMS). Data, including date of each dose of vaccine and the vaccine type, were extracted on 17 May 2021 with vaccinations to 16 May 2021. Vaccination status was considered as dose 1 for symptom onset 21 days or more after the first dose up to the day before the 2nd dose was received; dose 2 for symptom onset= 14 days or more after the second dose; and dose 1 or 2 as 21 days or more after dose 1 (including any period after dose 2).
So 3+ weeks after dose 1 and 2+weeks after dose 2.
And my brother and future sister in law would miss out on their wedding, potentially by two days.
EDIT: I now see the Independent:
"Boris Johnson is determined to lift the 30-person limit on weddings on 21 June, even if other lockdown restrictions remain in place, according to reports.
While the prime minister may decide to keep social distancing precautions remain in place, unlimited guest lists are set to be permitted, although wedding guests will still be required to wear masks when not eating and drinking, according to The Times"
It's the hope that gets you
As if the masks thing at weddings is enforceable! Just have a glass in your hand FFS. My wife was furious when she read that: “who would want people in masks at their wedding? And can we dance?”
The government needs to lift the wedding rules on 21 June and stop already with the petty little caveats. Enough.
My brother and SIL wouldn't mind.
Like most people they have a short ceremony, followed by a reception; in their case at the same venue.
Having guests wear masks at the ceremony is not a big deal. For the rest of the evening will be spent with a glass in hand (alcoholic or not)
Dancing?
In any case, the Times today again says weddings limit will be lifted come what may on 21 June. Which is good news.
So why not for christenings? Or funerals? Or birthday parties? Or barmitzvahs? Or other celebrations? There is absolutely no sense to any of this. It is arbitrary and capricious.
Because there is a huge Wedding industry that may collapse, I presume (not to mention the big wedding expectation)
The Christening/Barmitzvah industry is a much smaller affair..... And the funeral industry isn't really based around big funerals....
Well, there's a bloody great hospitality industry, even bigger than the wedding sector, which is being crucified by this "fuck business" government.
If there's a month's delay that's the summer season largely gone. The season when hospitality makes its money to survive the winter is March to September. It is already June and hospitality is still not open at full capacity. It has not been open at full capacity since March 24th last year. It has already had 3 winters in a row and now it looks as if it's going to get a 4th one. This is, frankly, unsurvivable.
My own work - which depends on the abandonment of social distancing - has also collapsed.
But yes all those with comfy jobs they can do from home while accumulating savings are fine with lockdown and restrictions continuing forever.
I am trying to get proof of my military service to apply for an Armed Forces railcard. There is simply no one at the relevant department and hasn't been since last March. No one. Not working from home, not long waiting times on the phone. Nothing. For 15 months whoever works at that department has been doing nothing. Probably quite happily.
Get @Kinabalu to vouch for you, or travel in uniform.
Comments
And it seems they have ‘health passes’ which are Vaccine Passports
https://www.gouvernement.fr/en/coronavirus-covid-19
But yes, I take your general point!
The only delay to 21 June that makes any sense to me is to reopen everything except nightclubs and to postpone reopening nightclubs to after all 18 year olds have been offered the vaccine. Though personally I think we should let people make their own free choice.
We need to move away from raw case numbers, and look at numbers of people who are getting sick.
And you claim we don't need to concede. Feels like we conceded massively.
The Christening/Barmitzvah industry is a much smaller affair..... And the funeral industry isn't really based around big funerals....
Basically Pfizer is lagging 11 weeks due to it being the dose of choice for the very oldest (Some of whom have died*, the rest of whom are already 11 weeks gap vaxxed) and the under 40s who have no reason to have doses accelerated (Yes yes I know I'm an exception here).
Meanwhile the AZ cohort for the 40 - 75 year olds mainly is being accelerated a touch
*Death between first and expected second dose
Where countries have few variants and most of the population have been vaccinated then May would have a point and travel restrictions could be eased there but there are not many of those at present and most of them are on the green list already eg Israel and Australia and New Zealand and Singapore.
What would be interesting is if the Government comes out with a target number for each figure.
Now that's no longer the case. The threats of a No Deal for Britain, that flights could be grounded, medicine halted or any of that other claptrap are now gone forever. So what chips do the EU have?
Most contracts have a section setting out how to end the contract. You want the contract when you sign it. You may want to end it at some point hence the articles setting out how to do so. Its a genuinely funny argument to make that contracts should have no exit mechanisms in them because triggering them to end the contract is not ending the contract as they are being used how they were intended to be used.
What would peoples' attitude on here be, for example, to know that it was @Dura_Ace and @contrarian preventing them living a "normal" life?
The possible good news for you daughter is that I read that Christenings are going to be covered by the arbitrary “wedding exemption”....
Time to punt.
I say that the line on Monday will be "Vaccines have been going so well that we are now at x% with first doses, and y% with second doses, and the Delta variant has started to decline. So we are opening in the UK whilst leaving a very few restrictions in place: (list of restrictions). Limitations on international travel will remain in place for a little longer, but we have been able to add these places to the Green List".
Plus a statement of clarifications where it is currently foggy.
Feel free to argue that that suggestion contains no content whatsoever.
(On the Lake District, I always that was where London / SE people went on holiday because they couldn't stand not havng traffic jams everywhere.)
May's terrible backstop deal had no unilateral exit mechanism.
There is nothing wrong with invoking an exit clause though, if you do that legitimately that is perfectly legitimate.
I know that you have this view that we are now uber alles and can just ignore the rules we dislike. Apparently we have ministers who also subscribe to that world view.
The big problem is that trade is bilateral and multilateral, and the rest of the world disagrees with our interpretation as to how trade works.
The state telling people they can't build on their own land is illiberal. Just because you like the Green Built doesn't stop it from being an illiberal big state intervention.
There is no rational explanation for how it transported itself from one place to the other.
However as I am a conservative and neither liberal nor libertarian I have no problem with state intervention to preserve the Green Belt.
If the LDs went libertarian however and proposed building all over the greenbelt as well as brownfield sites they would lose the one area they are gaining votes at the moment in the South to the Greens and Residents Association and Independent candidates
Part 7,328 ...
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/cdc-hold-emergency-meeting-after-100s-suffer-heart-inflammation-following-covid-vaccines
No-one who has had COVID, with or without symptoms, should be vaccinated. They're immune. Some who haven't had it are also immune. The others probably could benefit, especially if they are either over 70 and/or in very poor health. (The poor health matters more.)
Anyone who slips through the net should be prescribed Ivermectin, HCQ or other effective medicines, at a cost to the NHS of c. 10 p to £1.
But it's not about the health of the little people ... so this rational, evidence- and risk-based approach was discarded 18 months ago.
https://twitter.com/janemerrick23/status/1403275162124967942
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7ZsYe5Uwg0
If true I think we can forget opening up on the 21st. In fact we need to go back into a (short) period of greater restrictions now, otherwise the NHS is going to be stuffed in by next month, never mind August.
We need everyone vaccinated, asap, but that’s not going to happen until the end of the summer due to supply issues.
Or, alternatively, I would blame the authoritarian bastards who are doing it. The likes of Dura Ace and Contrarian are making an informed choice. Not their fault if our rulers are gobshites.
https://twitter.com/breeallegretti/status/1403275691777474560
Anecdotally, it does seem that some people are put off by a bad experience of side effects from the first dose. They may mistakenly believe that the side effects from a second dose would be worse than catching the virus with one dose of protection. Then you will have a certain proportion who are a bit disorganised, or have something more urgent come up either by intent or design.
Given about 20% of the population are anti Vaxxers and will not get the vaccination, the most we can get it up to it is about 80% double vaccinated from 50% now
Also the new risk assessment for Delta https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/992981/10_June_2021_Risk_assessment_for_SARS-CoV-2_variant_DELTA.pdf
Myocarditis and pericarditis are serious conditions so this should be looked at seriously, but this is not the scare story you are inferring. are you anti-vaxxer?
Lots of red here
"Ignoring rules you dislike" is realpolitik and all parties are doing it. The EU should have agreed to a Trusted Trader scheme by now, they haven't, so entirely acceptable for us to follow the rules and invoke Article 16 or unilaterally extend if they don't compromise before the end of the month.
If the EU won't compromise and meet its obligations then we can exercise our rights however we choose. The rest of the world is moot.
Besides the rest of the world aren't backing them despite that being the spin of FBPE Eurofanatics like yourself since you joined the yellow peril. The rest of the world understands that divorces are messy and only wants to see peace in Northern Ireland but doesn't care about "the integrity of the Single Market" or the rest of that bollocks. Hence Biden rightly calling for compromise, so the ball is in the EU's court to compromise.
Of course the government might actually be targetting 90%, it is marking it a target that is the problem.
If there's a month's delay that's the summer season largely gone. The season when hospitality makes its money to survive the winter is March to September. It is already June and hospitality is still not open at full capacity. It has not been open at full capacity since March 24th last year. It has already had 3 winters in a row and now it looks as if it's going to get a 4th one. This is, frankly, unsurvivable.
My own work - which depends on the abandonment of social distancing - has also collapsed.
But yes all those with comfy jobs they can do from home while accumulating savings are fine with lockdown and restrictions continuing forever.
As it happens, though, I think christenings are included in the liberalisation – at least that is what I remember reading in yesterday's Times.
In fact the reverse.
1) Various polls state that the number who say they won't take the vaccine are in the single digits.
2) Wales has achieved 87% (using ONS 2019 - so that might be 84%) and is still going up.
It is my longstanding opinion that if people are buying heroin it would be better to get it from a pharmacy like Boots than knife or gun wielding criminal gangsters.
Liberalism. You might want to familiarise yourself with the principle.
We need to get over this 'cases' thing asap.
The first meeting is always the one where BoZo is your best mate, and promises the World.
Only later do you get confirmation of the lies and betrayal
Your knee jerk big state interventionism sickens me.
Not that I'm saying PHE are wrong but they are probably a week early in their comments.
"How about a rule whereby anyone who calls for lockdown extensions has to first publicly reveal what their bank balance was on 1 March 2020, and what it was on 1 May 2021..."
Except... the Foreign Office found the free-to-use pic on the *Wikipedia page* for Douglass and then had it printed.
Biden, meanwhile, gave PM a $6k custom-made bike.
https://twitter.com/patrickkmaguire/status/1403257157362069506
Liberalism: NOUN
willingness to respect or accept behaviour or opinions different from one's own; openness to new ideas.
"one of the basic tenets of liberalism is tolerance"
the holding of political views that are socially progressive and promote social welfare.
"the borough prides itself on being a great bastion of liberalism and diversity"
theology
the belief that many traditional beliefs are dispensable, invalidated by modern thought, or liable to change.
a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise.
"representative democracy operates under the principles of classical liberalism"
the doctrine of a Liberal Party or (in the UK) the Liberal Democrats.
"working-class support for Liberalism"
Of course my opinions are my opinions. That goes without saying.
2) We are not seeing a matching take off in hospitalisations.
That is what PHE are talking about, I believe.
The big problem with smack isn't addiction, its crime and the peddling of uncontroled adulterated smack. So yes, time (decades ago) to legalise all drugs with state controlled regulation of it. Make class A drug use as societally unpopular as smoking.
Masks are the single most hated thing, they desperately need to go. They are also wrecking lots of open businesses, to which people aren't going because they are made to wear them, and wearing them makes the whole experience too unpleasant to be worthwhile.
My biggest personal bugbear is the ridiculous ban on singing in choirs and churches - this should have gone months ago, but the public health idiots are clinging to it like limpets.
It's been obvious for some time that the only restrictions with any value are on foreign travel - had we had proper travel restrictions throughout the pandemic (ie full on hotel quarantine for everywhere in the world, like we should have had) we would now not have the Indian variant, and we would have almost zero cases. Last autumns wave was almost entirely seeded by foreign travel too.
We should have imposed hotel quarantine until we had jabbed a sensible number of people, then relaxed the situation for those double jabbed, and then relaxed further to counties with similar vaccination rates, before relaxing completely when our vaccine programme is complete.
The idea of relaxing foreign travel rules when I can't buy lunch in my local shop without wearing a mask is lunacy.
Until that happens we can only act unilaterally.
libertarianism
NOUN
a political philosophy that advocates only minimal state intervention in the free market and the private lives of citizens.
...therefore allowing people to buy hard drugs from Boots or build a house wherever they liked would definitely be libertarian, but not necessarily liberal
Cons 44 (-2)
Lab 31 (+1
Green 9
LD 7 (+1)
Its good to see the Liberal Democrats have been edging towards liberalism on this topic too. They should do it more often. 👍
Go to 2:40 in the vid. Indian variant not even a variant of concern.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gGhTWrpQlo
Risk from India double mutation
194,247 views
•19 Apr 2021
Or is that making the mistake of counting dose 1 from date of dose?
I think/hope we may well exceed 80%. 90+% looks achievable (not counting the very young, who fortunately don’t really suffer much from Covid.)
Gibson could really create images in your mind, couldn't he?
That alley, the laser silently scanning in the snow over the offerings....
They gave Mrs Biden a first edition copy of a Daphne Du Maurier book.
I actually subscribed to The Times to check this out, and the article doesn’t say that they printed it off wiki at all. It says
“ Government officials decided on the photo, taken by Melissa Highton, a dual UK-US national, after spotting it on Douglass’s Wikipedia page. Johnson handed the picture to Biden yesterday to mark their first meeting and Biden’s first foreign trip as president. The mural is painted on a wall at Lower Gilmore Place by the Scottish street artist Ross Blair, who goes by the name Trench-One. A Foreign Office official contacted Highton after seeing the picture.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/picture-of-edinburgh-anti-slavery-mural-given-to-president-biden-by-pm-n3l953nrn
I think that the key paragraph is
Vaccination status
Data on all individuals in England vaccinated with COVID-19 vaccines is available in a national
vaccination register (the National Immunisation Management System, NIMS). Data, including date of
each dose of vaccine and the vaccine type, were extracted on 17 May 2021 with vaccinations to 16
May 2021. Vaccination status was considered as dose 1 for symptom onset 21 days or more after the
first dose up to the day before the 2nd dose was received; dose 2 for symptom onset= 14 days or
more after the second dose; and dose 1 or 2 as 21 days or more after dose 1 (including any period
after dose 2).
So 3+ weeks after dose 1 and 2+weeks after dose 2.